Soultwister's Poker Den

The Den has moved

2009-01-06T15:18:00.000-08:00

Further blogging will continue at
http://web.me.com/soultwister

Phase 2

2008-09-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

I upgraded my PC a few days ago, which actually also was quite funny to do (well, not the assembly, but the buying of the parts I needed). I walked into a computer store, across the place I work at myself, and asked them if they had the Q9300 processor. They answered no, so I thanked them for their time and walked outside. So I went into the next store, where they answered 'yes' to my question, and followed by asking me if that was all I needed. So I answered I also needed an asus mainboard but wanted to see their boxes (and made my pick after seeing them choosing the only one with the P45 chipset), 4GB of ram, an LG or Nec DVD burner, a SATA harddisk of 250gb (have enough external drives lying around) and a 550w power supply from Coolermaster or Antec.

Somewhere along the line they asked me what I was going to use the PC for, I believe it was when I informed them that the memory they were trying to sell me wasn't much better than the memory which was only 1/3rd of it's price (which was the only thing I bought where I even bothered to inform about the price, which also probably surprised them). I still remember the looks on their faces when I answered 'Poker' to their question.

So after finally bothering to put my PC together a few days later and reinstalling everything I decided it would be interesting to start with a complete clean database, and even not import my .dat file from Full Tilt which contains all the notes I have about players.

The reason for doing so was something I realized after my trip to Barcelona. I played a few days online and ran/played pretty bad, losing about 6 buyins or something. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I was getting less and less satisfied with my overall game. Further, my notes on players were cluttered with examples about hands that were way too specific, yet failed to describe the kind of players they were.

My NL2 winnings were something about 3.5ptBB/100 or something longterm, and that is not something to brag at, especially when I consider myself a decent player who invests a lot of time doing his homework, and who does not play too many tables.

I've been doing an extensive review of my old pokertracker database the last few days and came to the conclusion I missed out on quite some important things while playing my normal game, which was something that used to be a large part of my game before: Pure mathematics.

Here are a few examples to describe what I mean:

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG	billyk38139	($406.00)
UTG+1	YRRLYZL	($237.00)
CO	blinnd	($336.10)
BTN	Hero	($216.85)
SB	ChungBuck87	($311.50)
BB	Klaus47	($54.25)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is BTN

2 folds, blinnd raises to $7, Hero raises to $24, 2 folds, blinnd folds

Final Pot: $17

Hero wins $34 ( won +$10 )
blinnd lost -$7.00

Villain in this spot is a solid regular. He plays 23/19 attempt to steal 36% with 28% attempt to steal from cutoff. His fold to 3bet is 61%, but this is obviously weighted based on position, history etc. His continuation bet % is only 61%.

So here, even while it does not look that bad to just call, I do not think I can exploit him that much with his low cbet %, and I may get in a tough spot with an easily dominated hand like KJo.

My old standard was to polarize my range here vs players like these with QQ+, AK and suited one-gappers which exclude a T. That part of my range is still the same vs him, but KJo has some great preflop bonuses in this spot:

If he opens with 28% of his hands, and even with the history between us which makes me believe he will defend somewhat lighter vs my 3bets, I still only expect him to continue with hands like 99-AA, AJ+, KQ and JQs/JTs. That is 8.1% of the total hands which he could be opening with, and it's about 29% of his total CO opening range. Assuming I will get owned badly if called, or won't put a chip in postflop, when seen as a total bluff this needs to succeed 24/34=70,6% of the time while he will generally fold 71% of that range. Even while that seems miniscule +EV, there are still two people sitting behind me who may wake up with aces.

Yet if I add the card removal bonuses for having KJo here, his range shifts. Before he would be continuing with 29% of his total CO range, but if I calculate the odds for him to hold a hand he can continue with when I hold blockers to some of those hands, things shift drastically.

So what seems a likely 28% cutoff opening range? Assume something like this, which is actually 28,5%: 22+,A2s+,K8s+,Q8s+,J8s+,T8s+,98s,A7o+,K9o+,Q9o+,J9o+

That leads to 13 pocket pairs (78 combinations), A2s+(48 c.), K8s+(20), Q8s+(16), T8s+(8), 98s(4), A7o+(112), K9o+(64), Q9o+(48), J9o+(32).

This is not 100% correct off course, since I do not know his complete range, but it's a close estimate. Further, it's much more likely that hands like 56s are in his CO opening range than K9o when I am sitting behind him, but I'll leave it at this range for now.

So what this tells us is that he opens 430 different combinations, and he can continue with 29% of that range if I had no blockers, which are about 125 combinations. Me holding KJ gives me some blockers on his hand distribution if I look at what hands he'll continue with, which I described as 99-AA, AJ+, KQ and JQs/JTs. Holding KJ reduces the probability of him holding AJ+ with 8 combinations, KQ with 5, JQs/JTs with 2, 99+ with 6.

This sums up that while normally he could continue with 125 of his possible combinations, he can now only continue with 104. Me holding KJ has a significant impact on the chance I get called here, and while it's incorrect to say he will now only continue with 24% of his hands and will fold 76% of the time (since me having two blockers to hands he will continue with also reduces the chance he opened from that spot in the first place) it does have some noticeable impact.

This is an extremely marginal situation, but in this spot, combined with his low cbet % and some lunatics sitting behind me who could do something stupid like squeeze with A7o even without knowing how to spell that word, I figured 3betting was better in that spot than calling.

Hand 2:

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG	FIVETHREE53	($82.40)
UTG+1	zer_cool	($227.75)
CO	Hero	($230.70)
BTN	Neffer2	($76.20)
SB	clopper lover	($110.00)
BB	basouli	($438.75)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is CO

2 folds, Hero raises to $7, Neffer2 calls $7, 1 fold, basouli raises to $29, Hero calls $22, Neffer2 folds

Villain in this hand played quite sporadically. He ran at 40/31 with a 3bet % of 8.8%, and I already made a note about him in earlier observed hands which made me think he was extremely squeezy-happy. So right here, I again have to fix a little mathematical dilemma.

I probably open about 25 or 30% from the CO on this table, and this player is going to 3bet tons and is definitely going to use most squeezy opportunities. If I fold almost any hand vs him except a widened value based range, he is going to exploit me tremendously preflop. This is why I need to continue with about half the hands I open from this spot to not be exploitable preflop, either by calling or 4betting for value/as bluff. 9Ts in position is definitely playable, so I call.

Flop: ($66, 2 players)
basouli bets $45, Hero calls $45

In a normal raised pot I rarely float with just a gutshot and backdoor flushdraw and prefer a bluffraise (though on this board texture, I prefer a float), but in a 3bet pot the stack sizes become a bit too small to raise here. Further, I cannot represent much if I raise since I would not raise a hand like AJ either. His large cbet makes me quite comfortable about my options later on, so I decide to float here.

Turn: ($156, 2 players)
basouli checks, Hero bets $63, basouli folds

Standard after floating flop. vs tighter players I would take the free card, but the chance of him having a made hand is so small that I prefer to take the pot down on the turn, cheaply.

Final Pot: $156

Hero wins $216 ( won +$79 )
Neffer2 lost -$7.00
basouli lost -$74.00

Hand 3:
$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG	Big0308	($541.60)
CO	Hero	($401.10)
BTN	blinnd	($197.00)
SB	sorry_its_me	($121.75)
BB	easyway777	($352.45)

Pre-flop: ($3, 5 players) Hero is CO

Big0308 raises to $7, Hero calls $7, blinnd raises to $31, 2 folds, Big0308 folds, Hero raises to $66, blinnd calls $35

A 35/17 fish opened UTG, so I just flatted, since I do not really like raising with AQo in this spot much. It becomes more interesting though when someone who plays 23/19 with a 3bet % of 7.5% decides to squeeze. Yet again this person made some plays earlier which made me think that he pounds on preflop weakness a lot, so I assumed he was quite capable of squeezing here. I do not mind a call, but I figured AQ was ahead of his range, and since I will be playing AA/KK/QQ/AK the same in this preflop situation, I put in a tiny 4bet. Villain obliged by calling.

Flop: ($142, 2 players)
Hero checks, blinnd checks

I hated this flop kinda, since even while I rarely ever cbet in a 4bet pot OOP on dry boards, I do not expect to get much action. I took the same line with the rest of the hand as I would with KK in this spot.

Turn: ($142, 2 players)
Hero bets $69, blinnd folds

Final Pot: $142

Hero wins $208 ( won +$73 )
blinnd lost -$66.00
Big0308 lost -$7.00

Hand 4:

This is a hand I misplayed terribly, but I do not mind my play if I had something like KJ or A9o, since then I would at least have some blockers.

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG	shxlfxm	($281.80)
UTG+1	doktore4	($158.55)
CO	2michael8	($173.60)
BTN	Hero	($207.85)
SB	Bule Gila	($691.40)
BB	Boodabor	($219.00)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is BTN

1 fold, doktore4 calls $2, 1 fold, Hero raises to $10, Bule Gila raises to $28, 1 fold, doktore4 folds, Hero raises to $52, Bule Gila goes all-in $691.40, Hero folds

Villain in this hand is quite solid, played 21/16 after 1.2k hands, and had been owning me constantly at this table. Him sitting there would be a reason to actually leave the table, but since I want to get ready for 2/4, I do not mind some tough opposition at times.

What was interesting is that the villain in this spot 3bet me, while he generally used to just call my isolation raises in position when a fish was in the pot, even with hands like QQ+.

Because of that, I had to assume that he was probably more likely to be making a total bluff, compared to having an actual hand, since I did expect him to just call with all his playable and premium hands in this spot to keep the fish in, especially in position.

Sadly, I was wrong, and he told me after the hand that I made a good laydown, claiming he had AA, which translates into him saying he had 99 or something and just leveled me...

Final Pot: $108

Bule Gila wins $747.40 ( won +$56 )
doktore4 lost -$2.00
Hero lost -$52.00

Hand 5:

This has nothing to do with the point I'm trying to get across, but it was an interesting hand vs the same villain as in hand 2, and I am quite happy about the way I played it.

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG	Neffer2	($233.45)
UTG+1	clopper lover	($171.60)
CO	basouli	($269.40)
BTN	FIVETHREE53	($35.70)
SB	zer_cool	($195.00)
BB	Hero	($388.80)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is BB

2 folds, basouli raises to $7, 2 folds, Hero calls $5

Again the 40/31 player opens, 52% steal, and I hold crappy-connectors in the big blind. Generally this is a fold, but slightly over 100BB deep vs a bad player who may be tilting a bit after the last hands, I could not find the fold button.

Flop: ($15, 2 players)
Hero checks, basouli bets $12, Hero raises to $32, basouli raises to $102, Hero calls $70

I flop the nuts or cooler, and vs people who don't cbet too bloody often I just lead here. Vs him, a CR is more optimal.

After his 3bet on the flop, I consider my options, and I decide that if I get my money in now I will get it in as a decent favorite, but if I just lead the turn when it's safe, I'll probably have better equity overall. So I stick to that plan.

Turn: ($219, 2 players)
Hero bets $61, basouli goes all-in $160.40, Hero calls $99.40

River: ($539.80, 2 players)

With the history between us, I expect him to shove a turn lead extremely light, and I manage to get the rest of my money in pretty well. Obviously a shove would accomplish the same vs his set, but I do not think he would play a bare Ad or even Kd that different vs me.

Final Pot: $539.80
Hero shows:
basouli shows:

Hero wins $536.80 ( won +$267.40 )
basouli lost -$269.40

Overall, even while it does not show that much from these examples, I am going to to focus a bit more on mathematical edges when I can find them, and will probably tighten up quite a bit in spots which are extremely marginal vs non-regulars. Though vs regulars, I will probably still continue to do a bunch of crazy stuff for 2+ buyins when I think it's breakeven+, but that's good for metagame and image anyways.

EPT Barcelona

2008-09-27T15:11:00.000-07:00

Like the standard has been for me lately, it has been a while between updates again.
Only this time I do think I have a somewhat valid excuse, which is having spent 2 weeks in Spain granting myself a well deserved vacation.
Should any observant reader notice that the timespan between this entry and my most recent one is more than 2 weeks, please keep it to yourself since I do not need someone to tell me how lazy I am. Which yet again is proven by how little of the entry about my vacation is somewhat interesting to add to my blog, while the largest part of the vacation was spent at the local swimming pool with a nice cold beer.

Anyways, back on topic, so somewhere during that vacation me and the buddy who went with me decided to go to Barcelona. I lost the count about how often his father must have told him to not go to the casino/be careful at the casino/don't gamble at all as if he somehow thought the two of us were some gambling degenerates who only wanted to go to Barcelona to visit the casino there.

He couldn't be more right, but we did make some pictures with my phone from other random stuff so we could show him we did not spend all of our trip to Barcelona in the casino. One picture even got me in it, and even if it's a silly picture of me sitting in front of a pretty sad looking but tasteful desert, you have to take into account that these are the kind of pictures you want to show to people who think you are a degenerate. It screams "See, I do go outside at times." while it leaves away information like that particular restaurant being only about 500 feet away from the casino.

When we entered the casino, which was very early in the evening, it was already packed. Reason for that being that the European Poker Tour was taking place there, and with the amount of players left in the tournament, the final table would probably be starting that evening. Perfect day to play some cash games vs some EPT busters.

Our plan was somewhat disturbed because one of the differences between online and live poker: waiting lists. Online, you get onto a few lists, get a coffee, and get back in time to click sit down on a few tables. Yet live, during the EPT, you have to wait 4 bloody hours before you can claim your seat.

So after finally getting my seat at an NL1k euro table, it did not take that long to bust. I found myself within the first half hour after sitting down in a situation where I held two overs + nut flush draw in a multiway pot getting about 3 to 1 pot odds, snapcalled failing to hit my outs vs two pair and some random crap hand I do not even remember, instead of dragging in a nice 2600 euro pot. That's poker, but I am quite happy that I snapcalled there instead of bothering to consider the amount of money involved.

After that I decided to watch the 'bubble' before the final table, which is quite an experience to see from the tribune compared to some online broadcast.

After the final table had started I noticed Kara Scott, the EPT hostess, from her accent on the Cardrunner's videos, when she interviewed someone in the tribune. So when I saw her in the press area and she was unoccupied, I decided to chat a bit with her.

It did look quite foolish though when she pointed out to me that as a Cardrunners member I should be recognizing the person who was sitting at the table I was standing at, who was Brian Townsend himself.

It was quite fun to run into Brian. After introducing myself to him and talking to him a bit, he seemed a genuinely spontaneous and nice guy, as you'd expect him to be from his videos/interviews etc. I did not bother him for long though, but since I was a tourist that day, I did ask for a picture for my blog. That was no problem at all, and Kara was kind enough to also join the picture. Sadly it was a bit out of focus though thanks to taking it with a cellphone.

I left the casino somewhere around 2am, even while the action on the final table was getting quite hot and only a few players were left. Me and my buddy, who is just as poker degenerate as yours truly, had the dilemma to either watch an EPT final table from the tribune, or go out to party in Barcelona throughout the rest of the night. And after going out till like 6 or 7am I can definitely vouch that the nightlife of Barcelona is quite a blast.

August Results

2008-09-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

Last month I posted my winnings and bragged about it being my first 3k+ month (which actually is incorrect if I include donkaments, but when looking at cash games, it still is. I nearly doubled that this month when I include rakeback. The stats above are from the 30th of July till the 1st of September.

But what was more interesting in this sample is the amount of huge adjustments I made to my game, and how much I have progressed as a player in about a month time because of the play at NL200 vs NL100. The winrate isn't that impressive, but that is mostly my own fault. The hands I misplayed this month taught me quite some things about beating the game as did the hands I won, and those I observed.

What stands out most to me are the discrepancies between the regulars at NL100 and NL200.

At NL100 there are some good/decent/bad regulars who are working hard on increasing their games, generally not playing too many tables.

At NL200 the average regular is much better. Their play is much better on average and they are used to countering other regulars in certain ways.

But what is almost mind-boggling is that almost any regular which I mark as good or very good are just playing way too many tables, which means that even while they may be better than me, they lose their edge because they turn into hud-bots and adjust in a somewhat predictable matter.

One example I could take are solid regulars on the button. They open a wide range, some of them even over 60%, and when they get 3bet by the BB they just look at BB's stats. In my example, it would show something like 22/18 to them with a 7% 3bet. The first conclusion they will make is that I will be 3betting light often enough, and each regular has their own way to adjust.

Some of them will start 4betting light, or 4bet bluffing often. The frequency they 4bet with will give you different options to exploit them. One way is to 3bet with a value-based range which does well vs their range in an all-in situation assuming you get enough folds after 5bet shoving, and expand that range based on how often they fold.

Another way to adjust is by not 3betting light at all. Most of these players will just be looking at your 3bet % stat, and if it's high enough, they make an automated decision.

One key factor from these observations is that this group of regulars will NOT adjust their opening range at all. If they open A3o from the button, and the BB is an aggressive player who defends his blinds quite often vs an aggressive button, they will still not consider folding A3o the next orbit.

Here's one example from today about this type of regular:

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($200.00)
CO		($487.40)
BTN		($520.85)
SB		($92.00)
Hero		($200.00)

Pre-flop: ($3, 5 players) Hero is BB

2 folds, BTN raises to $6, SB calls $5, Hero raises to $28, BTN raises to $56, SB folds, Hero goes all-in $200, BTN folds

Final Pot: $118

Hero wins $262 ( won +$62 )
BTN lost -$56.00
SB lost -$6.00

Now, while this situation looks bloody standard, and this seems like a squeeze spot, the interesting part is how easy some other hands can be played vs this type of opponent:

With 1.1k hands on him he plays 23/17, attempt to steal 36% with 48% steal from button. So far, he folds to 3bets 56% of the time and 4bets 19% of the time.

If his 4bet % was not so high I would just call here to keep the fish in, and play fit/fold, and I think that would actually be more profitable in this spot. But assume for the moment that the fish in the SB had not called, what hands could I profitably 3bet here?

Definitely not a normal value bet range or a very polarized range. So 3betting KQ or air is suicide, so is 3betting any hand if you intend to fold to a 4bet. A better range in a button vs blind situation vs this player would be hands like ATs, AJs, AQ+ and any pocket pair including deuces with the intention to shove over a 4bet. Villain will be folding enough of his 4betting range there for that range to be very profitable vs him.

Now there are also players with a wide opening range who just fold to 3bets way too often OOP yet do not adjust their opening ranges much. Here are two examples:

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($265.60)
UTG+1		($239.80)
CO		($197.00)
Hero		($206.85)
SB		($121.85)
BB		($220.75)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is BTN

1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $7, 1 fold, Hero raises to $26, 2 folds, UTG+1 folds

Final Pot: $17

Hero wins $36 ( won +$10 )
UTG+1 lost -$7.00

This regular is someone I really respect, and I do not want him sitting to my left at all. His postflop skills are very solid, and he will be getting the best of me quite often. But preflop, in position, I can make a lot from him if I adjust well.

What do we know about villain? He plays 26/23 after 4.6k hands, attempt to steal 41%, and he opens 26% from his hands from MP. His fold to 3bet % is 80%, 4bet% 7%. Further, he cbets 95% of all flop, which is way too high yet he succeeds because people just don't adjust well to him.

So what kind of hands would I 3bet vs him? All kinds of offsuit connectors, small pocket pairs (I cannot setmine profitably vs his range, and floating with unimproved small pairs is something I really hate vs a solid player), suited hands with a few gaps like 58s, the lower suited connectors etc. I still want some postflop possibility because I do expect him to just call a 3bet OOP with hands like AQ and JJ/TT.

But what would I flatcall with? All premium hands and hands which play very well in position, like mid-pairs, medium and high suited connectors, and all premium hands.

This may sound exploitable but it's not. If villain cbets so bloody often and folds to many 3bets, there's little value in 3betting with premium hands. And villain plays way too many tables to notice I won't 3bet premium hands vs him in position. Should he start to notice, and readjust, I will notice it after a while and respond appropriately.

Here's another regular who I play almost the same way against in position:

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($234.90)
CO		($206.35)
BTN		($207.00)
SB		($282.25)
Hero		($240.00)

Pre-flop: ($3, 5 players) Hero is BB

3 folds, SB raises to $6, Hero raises to $20, SB folds

Final Pot: $12

Hero wins $26 ( won +$6 )
SB lost -$6.00

I have 1.7k hands on villain which show him playing 24/18, with an attempt to steal of 45% from the small blind, 83% cbet and a fold to 3bet % of 90%. This player is very positional aware but just fails at adjusting to who is sitting to his left. Opening too many hands from the SB works well for him on average, which is why he does it, but when he's playing 16 tables he will take an incredibly standard line here when 3bet: which is only continueing with JJ+ and AK.

If you look at a short sample, the optimal 3betting range vs him is all junk, and optimal calling range all premium hands. There is only one problem with raising all junk, which is that he may start to notice it when I 3bet him almost every hand. Though I still 3bet him almost every time, and the reason I do flat him often with hands like T7s etc instead of 3betting is for the same reason: I do not want him to adjust to me, and those hands I do not mind playing in position, even while when looking at it in a vacuum, 3betting T7s has better EV than calling with it.

Another thing I notice is that the regulars adjust well to cbets compared to those at NL100. They have balanced their ranges for floating, bluffraising, semi-bluffing, valueraising etc. What this means if you play a straightforward style vs those regulars when you happen to end up OOP vs them, they got an edge.

What I am trying to do to counter that is to have a much more balanced checking range. What this means is that I cbet much less than at NL100, but checking does not automatically mean that I'll fold. I may CR some boards as bluff/semi-bluff instead of cbetting them, may check-call for value and to induce bluffs, and may CR turns on drawy board because most regulars are just incapable of checking behind a turn when they hold a draw (they hate to put their cards face up).

Here is one example of me balancing my range a bit:

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

Hero		($602.40)
UTG+1		($209.80)
CO		($200.00)
BTN		($428.40)
SB		($282.65)
BB		($208.95)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is UTG

Hero raises to $7, UTG+1 calls $7, 4 folds

The button here is a very solid regular if you look at his stats, but not someone I really mind having to my left because he's a bit spewy. So far I got him at 20/16, 8% 3bet, 55% fold to cbet. Playing straightforward vs him is going to absolutely kill my winrate.

Flop: ($17, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 bets $13, Hero calls $13

As I mentioned earlier, I don't cbet that often. And especially vs a player like this, I balance my checking range in a way to let me exploit his tendencies more than he can gain from positional advantage.

Standard play here is off course to make a c-bet. I obviously do not want to give a free card on a board like this, and want to get value from draws.

But how will villain respond to a cbet here?

He will peel at least once with any heart + overcard combo he has and overpairs, will raise nut flush draw, made flushes and sets and will fold all other holdings like bare overcards.

So betting here gets some value out of his range, and getting it allin here on this board will be marginally profitable only.

But how will he respond to checking?

First of all, I expect him to bet his complete range when checked to because it looks like I am check-folding. I do check-fold on this kind of board vs him with hands like bare overcards all the time, but I would rarely if ever cbet here.

So if I bet here he can play his hand correctly vs me, if I check, he won't, because he will never get a free card. If I checkraise, I only get action from hands which will make a relatively small mathematically mistake.

Turn: ($43, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 bets $34, Hero raises to $104, UTG+1 goes all-in $189.80, Hero calls $85.80

Now we get to the point where it becomes interesting. Villain gets the chance to make a small mistake only if I lead here and he calls, and he gets the chance to fold his air.

But how do I expect him to act should I check here again even with a somewhat scary card on the board?

I expect this villain to absolutely never check a flushdraw behind, because he just does not want to put his cards face-up. He wants to abuse folding equity, and likes to balance his ranges, and that is fine. So vs villains like him, when it's very likely he is on a draw, giving a free card is no risk at all, since he will never take it. So my best way to get money in on the turn vs him when he could be drawing is by checkraising.

River: ($422.60, 2 players)

Final Pot: $422.60
Hero shows:
UTG+1 shows:

UTG+1 wins $419.60 ( won +$209.80 )
Hero lost -$209.80

Off course he did suck out, but that's fine. I did manage to put in the bulk of the money with 82% equity, while a more straightforward line would have got me to put my money in with only 58%.

High Variance Session

2008-08-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's session was absolutely nuts. There are no other words to describe it, and I definitely did not play optimal. It was a session which gave me a lot of food for thought. So much, I decided not to play today but go through the hands.

So first of all, let's skip towards the end of the session on one of my tables where someone tried to own me by using the BluffCall strategy.

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($70.15)
UTG+1		($200.00)
CO		($488.95)
BTN		($135.75)
SB		($424.50)
Hero		($921.80)

[UTG+1 posted $2]
Pre-flop: ($5, 6 players) Hero is BB

1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $4, CO calls $4, 2 folds, Hero raises to $21, UTG+1 calls $17, CO calls $17

[UTG+1 posts $2]. Let's stop here. What does this mean? Fireworks!

Someone posted his blind out of position after the previous fish busted. This is an incredibly fun situation normally since it will generally lead to the regulars going absolutely insane with isolation raises, resteals, re-resteals and 5bet shoves with 69s. So after seeing I hold the nuts preflop the regulars decide to disappoint me and absolutely fail at creating a large pot before the action gets back to me.

So what is the story here from the fish's perspective? He posted $2 out of position without giving any thought to it, and after posting he realizes he wants to protect his $2 with any two cards. He obviously considers his options, which are minraising, open shoving, and checking (there's no open fold button on FTP) and he chooses the first one.

CO is a decent regular and he chooses to just call. Vs fish's range, any two cards will be playable, but him not isolating instead is a bit suspicious to me. The range I put him on is actually quite strong, so more like a pocket pair, decent strong aces and not much else. Perhaps some random low suited connectors between 56s and 78s. I think if he had a random connected crap he would just iso-raise here preflop.

My raise here is obviously standard, though I do not want to let out what the bottom end of my raising range is here. It's close to any-one-card though.

Flop: ($64, 3 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 bets $64, 1 fold, Hero raises to $256, UTG+1 calls $115

Here I have a dilemma. I flop the nuts vs Fish and I do not care what he has. No matter what he holds here, he posted out of position which is a big mistake, he minraised preflop which is another mistake, and me stacking off with TPTK is not a mistake vs his range. So I am going to own him regardless of the results.

But CO is still in the hand. If I bet here, Fish calls/monkey shoves and CO calls, I am forced to pay his sets of because I have to assume hands like AQ/AJ are actually in his range here. And we're over two buyins deep.

Yet if I check, this hand becomes easier to play. Should I check Fish will see yet another opportunity to protect his $2 which he posted out of position, and will generally lead out with their complete range because my check obviously implies I do not hold an ace. Now if CO raises, I am quite certain he will be doing this with a large part of his range since he should be quite certain Fish is betting out his complete range here, meaning CO's range will be wider than sets and AQ/two pair, so I am more than willing to get it in.

CO folds and I complete the stack-a-donk move here, which Fish tries to counter by making a bluffcall. Its an advanced play from the Fish's arsenal, which is done to show sharks that they cannot be bluffed off no hand to inspire fear into them in future hands.

All in all he put in $198 to protect the $2 he posted out of position...

Turn: ($499, 2 players)

River: ($499, 2 players)

Final Pot: $422
Hero shows:
UTG+1 shows:

Hero wins $496 ( won +$219 )
UTG+1 lost -$200.00
CO lost -$21.00

But before Fish claims the Stupid Play Of The Day Award, I somehow decide to improve my chances on another table:

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($118.65)
UTG+1		($244.20)
Hero		($483.95)
BTN		($211.15)
SB		($715.15)
BB		($400.00)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is CO

1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $7, Hero calls $7, 1 fold, SB raises to $35, 1 fold, UTG+1 folds, Hero calls $28

Here I see some normal-stack dude open up UTG, and I got a suited-crap hand which is not +EV to play vs his stack size, especially not while there's a big-stack behind me who just can't resist squeezing every bloody time I decide to cold-call someone.

Somehow I decide to call here, to trap mr. Big Stack into joining the pot. I know he can't resist squeezing, so my trap succeeds here and he squeezes here as planned so I can call him in-position with suited-crap.

Flop: ($79, 2 players)
SB bets $55, Hero calls $55

Hitting a pretty good draw here was not part of my plan. I wanted to flop something like a gutshot at best so I could bluffraise and feel good about myself. Yet here I end up IP with a well disguised draw in position vs mr. Big Stack which is the best I could hope for preflop. I mean, put a 5 and a 7 on the flop when I got a 4 and a 6 means the poker gods must be on my side. I cannot raise here though since I do not want to get raised off my draw in this spot. Which was the ony correct play I made during this hand.

Turn: ($189, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $101, SB calls $101

So after improving to a pair and OESD I hold somewhere about 30% equity vs a real hand villain may have, like an overpair, but my hand also has a decent bit of showdown value. Because we are this deep, I have a few options here. I can bet hoping to fold out worse or hands with 6 outs at best, or I can check behind and hope to hit one of my million outs. I obviously decided to bet here because no other reason besides that I would get a decent price on calling a shove should he do so, and villain's call screams that he holds an overpair.

River: ($391, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero goes all-in $292.95, SB calls $292.95

In this spot I try to think of a single hand in villain's range my 4 can beat, and I can think of none since it's bloody obvious he was pot controlling and inducing with a high pocket pair at this time. Yet I get a somewhat decent price to bluffshove this river, which I decided to do before considering what on earth I could be representing here. I'm representing a set, that's it. Villain should know by now his JJ/AA beats any of the hands I could be betting here other than flopped or turned sets, and I somehow oblige by throwing 1,5 buyins more at him?

Final Pot: $976.90
Hero shows:
SB shows:

SB wins $973.90 ( won +$489.95 )
Hero lost -$483.95
UTG+1 lost -$7.00

On the bright side, it seems my stupidity seems contagious, as this hand happened later on the same table vs another player, after I succeeded building up a stack again:

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($164.90)
CO		($556.80)
Hero		($1660.35)
SB		($346.65)
BB		($413.05)

Pre-flop: ($3, 5 players) Hero is BTN

UTG calls $2, 1 fold, Hero raises to $11, SB calls $10, 1 fold, UTG folds

Flop: ($26, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $18, SB raises to $56, Hero calls $38

Villain in question played quite taggy, somewhere around 19/15, but my image was quite loose here. On this flop, there was only 1 hand I was really behind to, which is 66. Other than that, I do not see villain not 3betting TT or QQ vs me, nor calling OOP with QT because he's a nit. So what his flop raise means is that he holds 66, a very strong draw which may be close to a favorite over AA, or hands he turns into a bluff.

Reraising here is absolutely no option because it extracts no value from his worse hands, and getting it in here means I am actually a large underdog to his range, because 66 is a decent part from it and the rest of the hands he willingly puts his stack in will have sick equity vs aces.

Turn: ($138, 2 players)
SB bets $90, Hero calls $90

A very nice blank (J9 is not part of his range), villain leads out again and at this time I am much more comfortable about my hand. I do not like to mix it up between raising and calling here, because I expect villain to actually be checking some scarecards to me should be hit as I've seen him do before. Again I just call, and am perfectly fine with paying off 66 as long as I make money vs the rest of his range.

River: ($318, 2 players)
SB goes all-in $189.65, Hero calls $189.65

With another blank arriving, the call here is standard I think. Villain did not show 66 and called me a fish for making such bad calls...

Final Pot: $697.30
Hero shows:
SB shows:

Hero wins $694.30 ( won +$347.65 )
UTG lost -$2.00
SB lost -$346.65

Why So Serious?

2008-08-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($206.35)
Hero		($200.00)
BTN		($254.00)
SB		($307.55)
BB		($200.00)

Pre-flop: ($3, 5 players) Hero is CO

1 fold, Hero raises to $7, 1 fold, SB raises to $26, 1 fold, Hero raises to $58, SB goes all-in $307.55, Hero calls $142

Flop: ($509.55, 2 players)

Turn: ($509.55, 2 players)

River: ($509.55, 2 players)

Final Pot: $402
Hero shows:
SB shows:

Hero wins $399 ( won +$199 )
SB wins $107.55 ( lost -$200 )

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($214.75)
UTG+1		($186.80)
CO		($99.95)
BTN		($487.60)
SB		($197.40)
Hero		($246.15)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is BB

UTG raises to $7, 2 folds, BTN calls $7, 1 fold, Hero raises to $28, UTG raises to $90, BTN folds, Hero goes all-in $246.15, UTG calls $124.75

Flop: ($468.90, 2 players)

Turn: ($468.90, 2 players)

River: ($468.90, 2 players)

Final Pot: $437.50
UTG shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $465.90 ( won +$219.75 )
UTG lost -$214.75
BTN lost -$7.00

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($100.10)
UTG+1		($307.85)
Hero		($327.20)
BTN		($486.60)
SB		($193.60)
BB		($223.50)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is CO

1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $7, Hero calls $7, 3 folds

Flop: ($17, 2 players)
UTG+1 bets $11.65, Hero calls $11.65

Turn: ($40.30, 2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $24, UTG+1 raises to $96, Hero calls $72

River: ($232.30, 2 players)
UTG+1 goes all-in $193.20, Hero calls $193.20

Final Pot: $618.70
UTG+1 shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $615.70 ( won +$307.85 )
UTG+1 lost -$307.85

Why so serious? It's only money.

Either that is the common mindset at NL200, or it's just that absolutely nobody is capable of giving any other player the slightest bit of credit for having a better hand.

One huge difference in NL200 compared to NL100 is how players react to 3betting. There are many winning regulars at this limit who open 50-60% or even more from the button but call close to 50% of all 3bets should someone in the blinds decide to 3bet. Further, they even open around 50% from the small blind into any big blind, even if the player in the big blind is solid.

The scary part is how they crush the players who play back at them, even while most try to do so in a bad way. For instance, if someone likes to call when they get 3bet from the blinds while they hold the button often, why are people still 3betting with a polarized range? Why do the cbet every single flop in 3bet pots?

The common mindset at NL200 seems to be that aggressive regulars already know how to adjust to people who 3bet light out of position, and they are incapable of folding often enough because they think they can outplay them postflop. So if people keep 3betting the wrong hands, and play predictable postflop, they just get crushed in these spots.

A hand like this should be a decent example on one way to adjust to them:

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($433.80)
UTG+1		($243.00)
CO		($254.00)
BTN		($209.00)
Hero		($200.00)
BB		($133.70)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is SB

3 folds, BTN raises to $7, Hero raises to $24, 1 fold, BTN calls $17

So what is the situation so far: I've sat at this table for an orbit or so, but villain is a regular and played often vs me. He knows I am capable of 3betting light from these spots.

What do we know about villain with a decent sample size:
• He plays 29/23, attempt to steal 33%
• He opens 50% from the button first in
• He calls 3bets 50% of the time on average, so even more when in-position.
• He 4bets 13% of the time

How does he play in 3bet pots?

So far he folded to 35% of the cbets in total, in 3bet pots I have not seen him fold to a cbet that often. It's a mix of calling and raising generally.

Now before making a decision here it's time to plan the hand. First of all, is 3betting or calling better preflop? Even while KQs is a great hand to call with in these spots, the situation changes vs a player who will call with worse, raise with better, and fold some total junk or unplayable hands like A6o.

Further, when I 3bet this player from the blinds and we get to see a flop, I will be missing the flop a decent amount of the time. So knowing how he reacts to cbets, I will need to checkfold some flops I miss with my range, cbet/3bet some decent boards, cbet/3bet some semi-bluffs, and check-call some hands. Cbetting every flop is just going to burn money vs him.

Another good way to play in this spot is to not 3bet light vs him at all. But even so, I still think KQs is a mandatory 3bet for value here.

Flop: ($50, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $28, Hero calls $28

Here my standard line is to cbet. The board is quite drawy, and I can earn tons of value from drawing hands and hands he'll float with to bluff the turn when checked to. So should I bet here, my standard play would be to check any blank turn to this player because I really want to earn two streets of value from his complete range.

But like I said earlier, I will be checkfolding a lot of flops vs villain also. If I check here, he'll bet with his complete range, and KQ is just a huge favorite over that range on this board. So I decide to mix it up and started out by checking TP to him on a drawy board, and just calling his bet.

In this spot I cbet most of the time, CR a decent bit, and check-call now and then.

Turn: ($106, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($106, 2 players)
Hero bets $63, BTN calls $63

Here I messed up. Like I said, I wanted to earn two streets of value vs his complete range. The line I took here only gets value out of second or third pair, since my play makes very little sense. I did manage to extract decent value from his holding, but my bet size here is terrible.

A much better betsize would be something that would make him realize 2nd or third pair has little to no showdown value in a spot like this, so villain could consider a bluffshove. Something like 1/3rd pot would make my hand stand out as something like AJ, and a player as aggressive as him and a competent hand reader would not let this spot pass often.

Final Pot: $232
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $229 ( won +$114 )
BTN lost -$115.00

Another example of not cbetting too often in 3bet pots is this one vs a certain red pro from FTP. With about 2k hands on her, she is an example of someone who really tries to abuse position, and makes a decent profit of it. Her attempt to steal from button is about 89%, and she opens around 38% of her small blinds.

How she reacts to 3bets falls under about a different category as the previous villain. She actually folds to 78% of all 3bets, but never 4bets. Meaning that instead of a very polarized range that would be needed should she be folding or 4betting, a wide range is needed to 3bet here: Hands that can be 3bet for value and are not dominated often, and hands that can hit flops decently. In short, hands like 67s are not a fold or call vs her from the blinds, but a good hand to 3bet. AQ is about the cutoff I would be 3betting for value vs her, AJ and KQ would just be a call, since she would not call 3bets with worse hands.

In theory any two cards could be 3bet vs her since she folds too often, but that would just wake her up. I want her to keep playing her own game on the 12-20 whatever amount of tables she was playing, and not draw too much attention to myself. If she's going to focus on me a bit more, she's just going to own my soul, which is something I try to avoid.

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($439.75)
UTG+1		($151.90)
CO		($930.50)
BTN		($226.35)
Hero		($409.95)
BB		($201.00)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is SB

3 folds, BTN raises to $6, Hero raises to $22, 1 fold, BTN calls $16

Her call here makes her range quite strong, and I have to assume hands like AA/KK/QQ/AK are definitely a decent part of her range.

Flop: ($46, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

I do not like to cbet here since I do not think it can extract much value from her range. Further, should she continue with her hand, I'll be seeing hands that crush AQ here quite often. So I decide to check and reevaluate what's going to happen.

Turn: ($46, 2 players)
Hero bets $32, BTN calls $32

River: ($110, 2 players)
Hero bets $67, BTN calls $67

Because she checked behind on the flop, I do not have to worry that much about being behind now. So the turn and river bets are quite standard here hoping to get called by worse.

Final Pot: $244
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $241 ( won +$120 )
BTN lost -$121.00

Another interesting example of NL200 vs NL100 is this hand:

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

Hero		($226.00)
UTG+1		($582.90)
CO		($205.35)
BTN		($202.25)
SB		($306.60)
BB		($105.95)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is UTG

Hero raises to $7, 2 folds, BTN calls $7, 2 folds

Flop: ($17, 2 players)
Hero bets $11, BTN raises to $34, Hero raises to $72, BTN folds

This is an example of how people play at this limit. Villain in question plays 23/19/4, pretty solid player. Since I opened UTG, a raise looks very strong. What this means is that unless I hold AK/KQ/AA or a set, I am forced to fold the rest of my range.

But villain knows this too.

So here we are in a hand vs a villain who is solid, called preflop, and he makes a raise.

Only there are a few things to consider at this spot. Even while my complete range misses this board a decent amount of the time, villains complete range misses this board even more often.

The K is a good card for my UTG opening range, but the only hands villain can legitimately represent here are sets, nut flush draws, and perhaps KQ. He won't be raising a non-nut flushdraw or open ended flush draw vs an UTG opener simply because he does not want to get 3bet of his hand. Because villain is solid and knows how to play his decent yet not too strong hands, I have to assume the range he'll raise with on this board will only include a few real hands, but much more air and hands he turns into a bluff. And hands he'll be turning into a bluff will often be beating my Q high no draw.

That is why I decided to cbet relatively small to give myself a better price on a 3bet bluff. I would take the same line and betsize with AK/sets etc at times.

How is this different from playing vs NL100 regulars? At NL100 most the decent regulars would either call or fold a hand like 99 on this flop, and perhaps bluffraise some total air. At NL200 the regulars are better but play far more tricky, and they know they can fold out better hands with their marginal pairs, but do not want to call me down, so they bluffraise in spots which seem good for it.

I also think this hand is a good example on how to analyze the situations. If I am going to cbet/fold or check/fold in these situations instead of recognizing a good spot to rebluff, why would I be opening hands like QTs UTG again?

Final Pot: $85

Hero wins $120 ( won +$41 )
BTN lost -$41.00

So far I cannot complain about my results at NL200 yet. These are the results so far since the 30th of july:

July Results

2008-08-01T15:12:00.001-07:00

Even while July has been quite a bitch to me for a week or so, she made more than up for it in the end resulting in me having my first 3k+ month: $2334 normal winnings, $2995 if I include rakeback and $3420 if I include the ironman bonus.

The most interesting about july has not been the winnings though, but the adjustments I have made to my play. Not all of these will be out in the open on these blog entries, but the hand histories I posted should already point some of those out to observant people.

Other events in july that were quite interesting were the sweat sessions. I've done a few sweat sessions with some Cardrunner's members and realized much better afterwards how many different options there were for certain situations. Differences in how to approach certain spots can be so different for each player, even while one option is not always better than the other, but both are still viable. It's just up to me to consider my options better, and decide which one is best based on opponents tendencies.

Two For The Money

2008-08-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

"Still you talk like this. Who the fuck are you, like this is some kind of game. I was betting a few thousand a Sunday when I called you. You pushed me. Every call. All the time with your talk... I lost $380,000 this weekend... I was going to get married... I had a life..."

The above lines come from a movie which is included in the category I described in an earlier blog entry, which are movies from the "never bad enough to not be worth watching" genre.

The movie, "Two for the money", stars Al Pacino as the owner of a Vegas company which resolves around advising sports-betting addicts on what team to pick before a football match takes place. If they are right they get 10% of the addict's winnings. If they are wrong they may lose a customer.

The concept about the company's structure was quite interesting to me. Which is gambling with other's people's money and getting paid if you are right. Which translates into having an infinite bankroll to gamble with as long as the supply of gambling degenerates does not lose the trust in the company and steps over to competitors.

Most of those aspects can actually be applied to poker.

Gambling with other people's money? I probably have to lose over 20k dollars before I have to put in money again which originally did not come from another poker player's paycheck.

Losing customers or having customers move over to the competition? Also quite applicable. I generally get in a lot of situations where some preflop action is directly +EV but not the best one:

Here is one example from those:

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($480.20)
UTG+1		($134.85)
CO		($200.00)
BTN		($240.00)
SB		($200.00)
Hero		($230.00)

Pre-flop: ($3, 6 players) Hero is BB

1 fold, UTG+1 calls $2, 1 fold, BTN raises to $9, 1 fold, Hero raises to $30, UTG+1 folds, BTN folds

Final Pot: $21

Hero wins $42 ( won +$12 )
BTN lost -$9.00
UTG+1 lost -$2.00

So what is interesting about this hand? Not the hand itself, but rather my range for deciding on my preflop options here, and my 3bet sizing:

In the above example, there's a 38/10 fish limp-calling, who gets iso-raised by a 23/19 44% attempt to steal regular solid player. In this spot, the regular's range will be huge, and ATs is definitely way ahead of it, but still not that easy to play OOP. The fish's range here is huge here as well.

This is a very +EV spot to make a resteal, and I could show the math behind it if people are interested, but this was the only hand I hated from today's session.

Why is this? Because the times where this fish will limp, and solid player will isolate will be happening tons of times. The direct equity of making this preflop play is a few dollars, but how is it longterm?

The story behind the lines here is that a fish wants to limp into a lot of pots, because he likes to see flops. Curious what K8o can hit? You don't know before the flop! And then there's mr. solid regular who recognizes that, and makes an isolation raise here with tons of trash. He knows he has an edge on the fish and wants to keep other players out.

3betting here takes advantage of that, and is directly +EV. But when I 3bet here it will mean the fish will be slightly more unhappy. He wanted to see a cheap flop by limping in and a lot of people raise and reraise behind him. He has to fold, and does not succeed at what he wants. Yet if I just call here the fish will be happy enough to call and see if he can hit two 8's, I will see the flop 3-ways, even while OOP, there still will be one huge fish in the pot to exploit postflop. And a solid reg with a range I am ahead off.

The positional disadvantage is bad, but keeping the fish in will still make calling here a +EV spot. When I have random trash in these spots, which will happen quite often with this table lineup, I can still exploit the regular a bit by restealing now and then. But just calling here with a decent part of my range will keep the fish in the pot, which is good in itself, and reduces the chance he becomes unhappy by never seeing a flop at all and moving to other tables, or worse, quiting for the day.

The most interesting aspect about the movie was about the person from the quote starting this entry. This world has millions of gambling degenerates who are willing to lose lots of money. Sadly, I am not playing the limits yet where someone ends up crying because he lost 380k dollars to me. I am working on that though.

Almost all the money won by the regulars at FTP at these limits comes from recreational players and small gamblers. Gamblers are people who play expecting to lose, while the regulars are people who profit from their presence.

For instance, my july database which does not include any datamined hands, but only those from tables I were playing at, shows that the total losses made by 4056 different players is $44k. Which equals the total rake paid.
Yet if I change the filter to players who played at least 300 hands at those tables, they did not lose to rake at all. The total profit from those 250 players is about $11k even while over half of them are still fish.

In short, over the last month I've seen recreational players and gamblers donate $55k dollars to the poker community. This means that if that group is so eager to give their money away, I really need to stop making fancy plays vs them and save those for regulars who try to exploit me a bit too often. Why should I not play my hands face-up vs opponents who would not even notice it if I handed them a telescope, and why should I not use exploitable bet sizes vs people who can't spot the difference anyways?

Week 31: MADNESS!

2008-07-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

So my last entry I yammered a bit about how cruel July was to me, and all sorts of completely insignificant nonsense like that, but it seems July is actually coming close to becoming quite as hot as all the strippers that borrow her name.

Sadly, before I spoil the results, this entry to my blog is only about the current week, so I have to stick to the plan and focus on that, instead of strippers.

I made an incredibly smart move this week, which is to purchase Holdem Manager. Now before you go thinking this entry will be just one giant Holdem Manager review, you are dead wrong. Considering the sick amounts of hits this blog gets because of people looking for information about Poker EV (and after today, strippers), I will not be responsible for getting one of the two companies bankrupt yet.

At least not tonight.

The reason for not doing so tonight should be quite cliché. I have better things to do this evening. Like watching Nicholas Cage movies.

Now before an observant reader scrolls down and sees the time of this post and thinks out loud (poker players think out loud, blame Techsmith) 'WTF are you doing blogging on a sunday evening? Don't you have better things to do than post a lousy blog?!?), the answer to that question should be pretty easy to answer: Yep, as answered above which you have not read if you scrolled down to the bottom already, but I'll be glad to clarify: Nicholas Cage movies have the same quality as movies which involve Sean Connery: They are never bad enough to not be worth watching.

The real reason for watching movies and posting on my blog on a sunday is actually quite simple: 1 sixpack. My stop-loss is set at 4 Heineken. So I won't let myself play today anymore...

To get back on track, July is not as bad as I made her sound. She's just been teasing me a bit. So next time I meet a stripper named July, I'll just think about this week's graph:

Or this week's table:

Even while I have not put in that many hours this week, I think the few I put in were those when I felt I was able to play my A game. Which means not being drunk, distracted, horny, tired or hungry.

The most interesting and incredibly well played pots were some of the dozen of situations where I check-folded some bad flop textures, but posting those in this entry would just bore people, so instead, I'll post some random other hands from this week to keep the readers happy:

Hand 1:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($103.65)
UTG+1		($145.90)
CO		($261.95)
BTN		($34.55)
Hero		($105.60)
BB		($146.40)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is SB

1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $3.50, 2 folds, Hero raises to $12.50, 1 fold, UTG+1 calls $9

Villain in question is a regular at these limits who likes to own the regulars with relentless aggression. I'm a regular too, but dislike to get owned, which changes the metagame between the two of us quite a bit.
His VPIP is 40, PFR 31, attempt to steal 45%. Which are stats that Holdem Manager(TM) shows in the hand replayer without me even asking about them. And when I hold my mouse over his stats in the replayer, it shows that he folds to 3bets 19% of the time, out of 349 hands in july, or rather, out of the 19 times he got 3 bet, which was generally by me.

These are my notes on him:

Does not fold to any of my 3bets, 4bets often
Will check-call flushdraws in 3bet pots
representing hands when IP
OOP will make some large bluffs but won't do anything crazy on rivers without the goods.
leads oesd and continues on turn

So knowing this, I know I will not get him to fold often, but TT is way ahead of his range here, and this screams for a value 3bet.

Even I heard it, so I did.

Flop: ($26, 2 players)
Hero bets $16, UTG+1 raises to $34, Hero calls $18

Villain raises me slightly over a minraise here, but this board is not that bad for my range vs his range. There's one overcard, and if he hit that overcard, would he really be stupid enough to raise a hand like AJ here vs my range? Definitely not, so the range I put him on is AJ (like never), air (lots), marginal mid-pair (often) and set (sometimes). Which means that vs his range I'm still ahead, but I cannot get value out of any of his range which I beat here by raising.

Turn: ($94, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 checks

River: ($94, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 goes all-in $99.40, Hero calls $59.10

He checked a blank turn, and bets a second J on the river? I do not think he will be raising a J on the dry flop, not even AJ, which translates into the second J being a blank. Yet what does my hand look like? A marginal pair or perhaps an overpair looking to get to showdown cheap, but definitely not a J. Villain is good enough to realize that, and he'll be 100% correct in this case. So when he shoves this river, he got air or a set. But would he check a set on that turn if he likes money?

Final Pot: $212.20
UTG+1 shows:
Hero shows:

UTG+1 wins $40.30 ( lost -$105.60 )
Hero wins $209.20 ( won +$103.60 )

Hand 2: Same Villain:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($138.90)
UTG+1		($254.25)
CO		($39.55)
Hero		($104.10)
SB		($142.10)
BB		($100.00)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is BTN

UTG raises to $3.50, 2 folds, Hero calls $3.50, 2 folds

Flop: ($8.50, 2 players)
UTG bets $6, Hero calls $6

I absolutely hate raising with a double-gutshot vs a thinking lag. I think hes capable of 3betting AQ etc on these boards should I raise, and my hand is well disguised.

Turn: ($20.50, 2 players)
UTG bets $14, Hero raises to $42, UTG folds

Now here I have a mathematical dilemma. My draw is huge, but this player will still be betting unimproved overcards here quite often or marginal pairs, and some draws himself, because he thinks I could be holding a marginal hand/draw myself.

Now vs almost any taggish or standard player I would almost always just call here, because most of the time all my flush and straight outs will be good, and I have a diamond flushdraw on the board I can do something with as well should it hit.

But what vs a player who will not bluff the river should I call here, still does not have a made hand here that often, and will just check-call the river with the best of his range and check-fold all his air on any river unless the board does not change like an extra 3?

Calling here vs a player like that is directly immense EV, but I expect his range to hold so much air still that I actually decided to make a committing raise on this turn thinking it would probably be even more EV because his range would still hold so much air still.

Final Pot: $48.50

Hero wins $74.10 ( won +$22.60 )
UTG lost -$23.50

Hand 3: Another TT:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($82.95)
UTG+1		($101.00)
CO		($111.20)
BTN		($113.60)
SB		($138.55)
Hero		($100.00)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is BB

UTG calls $1, 2 folds, BTN raises to $4.50, SB calls $4, Hero raises to $18, UTG folds, BTN folds, SB calls $13.50

A fish limped, someone with 18/14 yet 40% steal iso raised and a 27/15 coldcalled. The correct decision is about as tough here as choosing between spareribs and tofu.

Rest of the hand does not matter since it was pretty standard for both sides, but I stacked some fish atleast.

Size Matters

2008-07-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

I've been silent since my last update. I vaguely remember me describing in the last entry how good July was for me and how juicy the tables were.

My thoughts about the juiciness of July changed a bit because of a downswing peaking at about 15 buyins. Some of the downswing could be credited because of bad luck. Earlier during the month I checked some PokerEV data and it showed I ran about 10 buyins below equity in allin situations, which had a probability of about 16%. So I did run somewhat bad.

PokerEV calculates Sklansky Bucks, but it does a lousy job at calculating Galfond Bucks. Galfond Bucks, G-bucks for short, are about the expected value based on villain's hand range and tendencies. For instance, on the deepstack tables I managed to get KK in vs AA about 3 times. Getting the money in 3 times with kings vs aces will have an expected value of -$384, I ran at -$600 (slightly more losses even since generally I had a larger than 200BB effective stack), so I lost $216 worth of sklansky bucks on those tables.

G-bucks on the other hand were immensely good in those spots, especially vs people who still jam AK and JJ preflop, so those spots were just coolers.

Other than that, I'm really disappointed about my play this month. It's not that I played bad at all, I think I played pretty decent, but I got one huge leak to work on which is the consistency of my plays. I do try to adjust my ranges based on player tendencies well enough, but my bet sizing is way too consistent.

For instance, when playing vs a calling station and I got a strong hand I may bet slightly more than vs a more solid player. This may be fine on the flop, but on the turn and river I noticed after some session reviews my bet sizes are just too consistent vs most kind of players.

When I am playing vs a solid player who check/calls my cbet on an ace-rag-rag board and I hold AK or a set, it's pretty obvious villain is in a check-call mode vs me. Why not bet pot for all 3 streets in spots where I never will be bluffing anyways? But this counts even more vs fish. When I got a decent idea about their hand range, and want to make a value bet, fish won't be paying attention to my bet sizing. Whether I bet $31 in a $39 pot on the river or bet $39 will have absolutely no difference on whether they call or not with a TP-strength hand. So why do I lose value there?

Filtering july's results shows something interesting. If I filter it on the hands where I went to showdown, bet the river, those winnings total at $1,5k worth of winnings in 108 different situations. In the situations where I reach the showdowns and bet the river, I won 73% of the time. I reviewed each of those 108 hands today and realize I probably missed close to $500 worth of value in those spots. Now THAT is a huge leak in my eyes.

On the bright side, even while July has been pretty bad for me, it's not as bad as it sounds. I won only $215 in normal winnings, but when I include the ironman bonus and rakeback, it has been good for about $1100 so far, which is not totally hopeless.

I just realized this entry was completely without any hand histories, so I will make up for it by posting the most interesting hand of the day. It's not the largest pot I won/lost by far, but I think I could have lost a lot of value here by cbetting (and getting called by the fish and bluffed on river) or doing a delayed cbet which would just lead to a fold:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($46.30)
CO		($100.00)
BTN		($98.50)
Hero		($237.55)
BB		($88.90)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 5 players) Hero is SB

3 folds, Hero raises to $3, BB calls $2

Villain will not fold his BB often at all, he's a 43% 0.7% aggression fish, folds 23% of the time to cbets, which explains my smaller open from small blind.

Flop: ($6, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks

I do not like to cbet here. Villain will call with as much as 1 overcard probably, but I could be drawing dead at times aswell. Do I want to check-call the river? No. Will villain check the river down without showdown value should I cbet here and check both turn and river? No. Do I want to bet here and check-call any river? No. Will villain bet this flop without anything? This is the good part: No. So no need to bet for value here and get myself in trouble later on in the hand.

Turn: ($6, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks

Read flop explanation. A 7 arrived. Will villain bet air/overcards here? Nope. Will he bet a 7? Yep. So this is an easy check again.

River: ($6, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $6, Hero calls $6

Did the board change? Nope. Can villain call with worse here? Nope. So no value in betting. Calling stations however do like to try to take pot downs when they suddenly realize their hand is probably no good, but me checking thrice gives them the impression I do not have anything.

Final Pot: $18
Hero shows:
BB shows:

Hero wins $17.10 ( won +$8.10 )
BB lost -$9.00

Back into Action: July

2008-07-10T15:22:00.000-07:00

After leaving June behind me, which is something I do not really mind with the bad start I had starting it on a tilty downswing followed by proceeding the rest of the month putting in way too few hands, June has only been good for a few buyins profit for me.

July on the other hand has started off quite well for me, and the tables seem quite juicy compared to normal, which may be because of everyone trying to earn enough FPP's this month to clear their Ironman bonus.

The most fun hand was vs a Cardrunner's member, who asked me to post the reasoning behind the hand on the CR forums. Atleast, that is my interpretation from his chat, his exact words being "go put thaT ON THE FORUM FISH". Because of that, I were kind enough to oblige, and also decided to post the hand here just in case he happens to miss the specific topic about it:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
4 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Profiles and Stacks:

CO	($131.65)	14.5/8.2/7.0 (110)
BTN	($100.00)	17.0/15.0/1.3 (100)
Hero	($248.45)	34.9/30.2/3.8 (106)
BB	($50.25)	22.6/12.9/7.0 (62)

Sitting to my direct left is another CR member, and a very solid one. Hes not part of this hand since he was sitting out this hand, and my intentions were to leave the table as soon as he showed some interest in my stack (meaning making my life hell).

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 4 players) Hero is SB

1 fold, BTN raises to $3.50, Hero raises to $12.50, 1 fold, BTN calls $9

Villain in question has taggish stats, has high attempt to steal (atleast over 30%) seems solid but I do not know him that well. I have not 3bet him light that often, and want to see how he responds. With a hand like A6s I generally fold, but because the other CR member was sitting out, all 3 options were available (since I do not fear getting squeezed by the remaining player). I chose to 3bet here though since A6s is a bit too weak to flat with OOP.

Flop: ($26, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

I do not know what kind of hands he'll call me with, but I expect it to be wider than normal because of my own stats (35/30/3.8 with 52% attempt to steal). So here I am somewhat worried about AQ/AJ, but on the other hand, I did hit TP in a 3bet pot. OOP I do not want to bet/fold or bet/call with this hand, so I decide to check. Villain checks behind, which makes it quite unlikely for me that he holds a strong ace here. I do not know if he's capable of checking AQ behind here, but it seems very unlikely to me.

Turn: ($26, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $15, Hero calls $15

Because of his flop check, I expect to be ahead here most of the time unless he holds 99. I still see very little value in betting, and am not certain what to do if I get raised here.

River: ($56, 2 players)
Hero bets $12, BTN goes all-in $72.50, Hero calls $60.50

Here I assume I have the best hand, unless he has 99 or hit his flush. I think check-calling is best vs his bluffs, but I am not certain if he'll bluff again in this spot. I also do not like to bet/fold here.

So I decided to make the head-exploding bet here to at least allow him to do something stupid, since my play makes no sense. When I try to induce a bluff, I obviously have to call here.

Final Pot: $201
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $199 ( won +$99 )
BTN lost -$100.00

So, I think my reasoning and play was quite fine in this hand. Because I gave the villain in question some respect I used a bit less straightforward line to keep the pot small and protect myself from bluffs early in the hand, and increased his bluffing range on later streets.

But was this respect for villain justified?

- What was villain representing here?
- What was villain doing at this table with two CR members sitting to his direct left (other CR member is not in HH because he's sitting out)? Obviously this must mean he is quite sure about his ability to outplay both me and the other CR member even while he will be OOP except when he holds the button.
- Why did villain call a 3bet preflop with 79s while only 100BB deep? Again, he must be a great player if he thinks he can play that hand profitably IP in a 3bet pot.

Sure buddy, I'll post it and explain my thought process. Now I dare villain in question to explain his.

Week 25 Update: Running HOT!

2008-06-23T06:49:00.001-07:00

Last week I posted an update and I berated myself for not getting in enough hands. This week, I managed to get in even less hands, but damn, I sure managed to run hot while doing so, and think I made very few mistakes.

The position stats are the sickest of all:

I had a VPIP of 38% from the button, and PFR of 33% in that spot. This shows that the tables I played at allowed me to exploit the hell out of position.

I will not be posting the hands of my sunday session vs the Sunday-donks though. I recorded the sunday session without sound, and will probably post a video about it with commentary on Cardrunners when I get time to do so. The session was quite interesting because it shows more about adjusting to game-flow and player tendencies compared to standard optimal lines in certain situations. It also shows some spots where I embrace variance with very marginal holdings because it feels very +EV, and spots where I do the opposite and make some folds which could be perceived as bad/nitty. Overall it should provide enough material for quite an interesting video.

No Respect

2008-06-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

Today I again found out why it's pretty stupid to tilt off stacks at FTP, since people are just way too bad at the lower limits (if you table select decently) to really pose much of a problem.

This hand for instance may seem spewy but I'm pretty certain I played it fine.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
4 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Profiles and Stacks:

CO	($71.20)	28.0/4.0[/1.0 (25)
Hero	($149.15)	33.9/28.9/3.3 (121)
SB	($156.15)	14.5/9.7/4.0 (62)
BB	($457.85)	35.4/28.3/2.1 (99)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 4 players) Hero is BTN

1 fold, Hero raises to $3, SB raises to $10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $24, SB calls $14

At this table I am not really playing that tight. I'm running around 34/29, attempt to steal was around 78%, and even while 9T is a standard open for me here, and a standard fold to a 3-bet, there are a few things to consider here.
I already stepped onto the SB's toes a few times. Not really stepping on them, but more like throwing knives at his toes and hitting. His head was probably about to explode, so the 3-bet here was not that odd. On the other hand, if he makes such a small 3-bet, I'm calling with most of my range. 9To is a bit too weak to call with though, even in position vs a 3bet, so I decided to turn my hand into a bluff since I am quite certain villain's range is huge here because of our history. I decide to 4-bet very small here so he it seems he almost has to call here (even while I want a fold) hoping he sees this as strength and folds his steals.

Flop: ($49, 2 players)
SB bets $49, Hero goes all-in $125.15, SB folds

Again something which may seem spewy. Villain pots here, seems pot commited, and I just have an OESD. This seems a standard fold situation. On the other hand, I really cannot think of any hand villain could be potting here for value after I 4bet him PF, so here it's just about hand ranges. What's the whole story of this hand at the moment?

Villain hates my guts. He does not give me credit pf, even while I only steal 78% of the time, and will often decide to make a light 3-bet in this spot.
Villain saw me making a very small 4-bet, which is something he cannot fold to, because he does not want to let a nit like me outplay him, so he calls.
The flop is likely to miss me, if he bets large here he probably expects me to fold most overcard combo's.

Sorry dude, you made a huge mistake here. Would I make such a gay 4-bet preflop with a hand like AK/AQ? Or rather, do I think you expect me to make those raises with those hands? No bloody chance dude.

So taking that into account, I can only see him donkleading potsize on this flop with a hand which has absolutely no showdown value if called (like an underpair). Sadly, underpairs beat me here, so I shove to fold them out.
.

Final Pot: $147

Hero wins $221.15 ( won +$72 )
SB lost -$73.00

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Profiles and Stacks:

UTG	($464.25)	35.4/28.3/2.1 (99)
CO	($71.90)	57.9/36.8/8.0 (19)
Hero	($222.90)	33.9/28.9/3.3 (121)
SB	($188.00)	16.1/12.5/1.0 (56)
BB	($100.25)	25.6/4.7/1.0 (43)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 5 players) Hero is BTN

1 fold, CO raises to $3.50, Hero raises to $12, 2 folds, CO calls $8.50

Flop: ($25.50, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero checks

Even while I cbet this flop with almost 100% of my range, I do not like to cbet it vs 100% of the villains. Here my image should be something like a total retarded spewmonkey on tilt if villain trusts his stats, and I flop the nuts (TPTK is the nuts when you are a maniac), but sadly, I also hold the ace of hearts here. Which leaves very few hands in villains range to peel one off here, or semibluffraise me with. Because of that, I decided to just check behind here. Another reason to check behind is because my 3-betting range is probably conceived to be pretty huge (even while it isn't, I would only 3-bet him with 74s and better there...).

Turn: ($25.50, 2 players)
CO bets $25.50, Hero calls $25.50

villain bets pot while I got the nuts, pretty standard.

River: ($76.50, 2 players)
CO goes all-in $34.40, Hero calls $34.40

Villain shoves here for half-pot remaining stack sizes as a bluff. Even when I am on complete monkey tilt I pick better spots to bluff. This shows again how little credit people give you when you got somewhat maniac-donkey-total-drunk statistics at a table.

Final Pot: $145.30
CO shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $142.30 ( won +$70.40 )
CO lost -$71.90

This hand was probably the most interesting:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Profiles and Stacks:

UTG	($171.00)	18.1/18.1/5.0 (105)
Hero	($146.75)	21.5/17.0/2.3 (135)
CO	($97.00)	21.5/15.6/7.0 (135)
BTN	($246.75)	29.8/14.5/1.8 (131)
SB	($100.00)	22.2/11.9/0.9 (135)
BB	($105.00)	17.0 /14.8/6.0 (88)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1

1 fold, Hero raises to $3, 2 folds, SB calls $2.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($7, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $5.50, SB calls $5.50

My table image here is a bit more normal, but I got enough history with villain to know he gives me very little credit. This is not the best board ever, but still a standard cbet situation.

Turn: ($18, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $13, SB calls $13

I never mind hitting top set, so I am not too shy to put a bit more chips in the middle here.

River: ($44, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $21, SB goes all-in $78.50, Hero calls $57.50

This is where the hand becomes interesting. I know villain gives me little credit on the flop, yet would always raise a flop cbet with a set or straight. He would raise there but would not raise a draw, except his best ones. But if he calls my turn bet, I know he never holds a hand like 67, and 56 he would have played different as well. So if he holds a 6 on this river, it must be because of him holding 66, which also makes no sense since he would fold that to a turn bet. This translates to top set being the nuts here even with 4 to a straight being on the board. I almost bet something like $36 here, trying to get looked up by TP or underpair hands, but was not really certain villain always held a made hand here in this spot, so decided to bet smaller and make it look like a blocking bet. When I make bets like these, I never do so with intention to fold, and here I also got no reason to.

Final Pot: $201
Hero shows:
SB shows:

Hero wins $198 ( won +$98 )
SB lost -$100.00

Largest pot I lost today:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Profiles and Stacks:

UTG	($177.00)	23.8/9.5/1.2 (42)
CO	($147.10)	14.5/9.7/4.0 (62)
BTN	($200.00)	35.4/28.3/2.1 (99)
SB	($213.55)	5.9/5.9/1.0 (17)
Hero	($105.00)	33.9/28.9/3.3 (121)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 5 players) Hero is BB

2 folds, BTN raises to $3.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $12.50, BTN calls $9

I obviously gave villain little respect here. He seemed like a total maniac. He played like me a bit. So I 3bet here.

Flop: ($25.50, 2 players)
Hero bets $16, BTN calls $16

This is a good board to cbet.

Turn: ($57.50, 2 players)
Hero bets $32, BTN goes all-in $171.50, Hero folds

I do not mind the second K arriving on the turn, since it makes it much less likely that villain holds a K here himself. The best part about this spot is that I do not need to bet too much. Even if I just bet half-pot here or something, I can still easily shove the river here should I have a K. Because of that, I get a nice discount on a second bluff, and take it.

Final Pot: $121.50

BTN wins $258 ( won +$58 )
Hero lost -$60.50

WTFrog Do You Think I Have?

2008-06-17T15:20:00.000-07:00

I only put in a short session, playing slightly over an hour and putting in slightly over 400 hands. Yet people absolutely gave me no respect at all and tried to treat me like Holland treated Italy and France earlier. Good strategy, but not failing to take one little detail into consideration: I am Dutch.

These were my largest pots for the hour:

• Preflop: Leviathan1 seems a solid aggressive player. I had a quite aggressive image at this table as well and his limp here surprised me a bit. Some fish limped, and he did not make an isolation raise? I had the feeling that if I were going to make an isolation raise myself I'd get slapped in the face by him, so I elected to just limp along in position. Another very aggro player in the BB decides to squeeze here, but his range here should be huge. Even while my hand is not that great, I get decent odds to call and see a flop in position.

• Flop: Villain cbets around pot size here. I do expect him to cbet here with his entire range, but I am not sure about what size he'd use OOP. I have no backdoor draws, but there's a somewhat decent chance my bottom pair is still good here. Even if it's not, I decide to float and see what happens on the turn.

• Turn: So I hit two pair, could still be behind to a few sets and AK but I have to assume vs a very aggro player that I hold the best hand here almost always. When he shoves, I hardly see him doing so with anything which beats me so the call here is standard.

• Preflop: Standard, a minraise here can mean a bunch of things, I do not really care though with a second player in and somewhat nice implied odds.

• Flop: I can't wait to check-fold here.

• Turn: I love free cards. Villain who is not the PFR, but who runs like 41/8, pots this turn. I have little idea about his range here to be honest. He could have the nuts, top set, air, but I am very eager to get the stacks in. I decide to just call though to try to keep the initial PFR in.

• River: I still think I need to raise for value here. I missed out on 0.55 worth of value though.

• I just started at this table, and had no clue what the minraise meant. It could be a draw, set, bluff and I'll be OOP for the rest of the hand. I decided to not fool around and just try to get my chips in the middle. Villain actually just had top pair second kicker here and misplayed it in a pretty terrible way. If hands like these are in the range he'll raise and shove this flop with, I need much less strong hands to continue vs him in the future.

• Another hand vs an unknown who seemed a bit aggressive in the small sample so far. I really dislike how I played this hand though. On the flop I had no clue about his range, so I guessed it could be bluffs, sets, draws, TP etc. I decided to just raise for value here because I had no backdoor draws left. If I held a Q of diamonds, I would just have called. But villain made a very small 4-bet here which screams strength. Correct turn play would probably have been to slam my head into the wall, yet fold regardless since this is rarely a bluff. But I'm a fish so decided to get it in.

Overall I managed to win 3.3 buyins in slightly over an hour, Holland gave Romania the 1-2 Teddy, so nothing to complain about today at all.

Week 24

2008-06-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

So why have there been no updates since last sunday a week ago? For the same reason people are silent in non-poker related events: I had nothing to talk about.

I only managed to put in around 6k hands, running at a measly 2.16ptBB/100. Not really something I can brag about on my blog.

One thing I've been wondering about is how I approach my game. I keep making some very high variance plays, probably due to the Fancy Play Syndrome, and a discussion on the Cardrunners forums made me realize the errors of my ways: I should keep the fancy plays for higher limits, bluff much less, and just grind my way up from the toe-itch limits so I can eventually reach the nose-bleed limits.

The hand in question was this one:

Flop: I made a standard cbet here and got called. One thing was certain when facing this player, which is that he does not have two pair here nor TPTK. Turn: I do not want to two-barrel since I expect to get called by his whole range here. So I decide to check, to either get a free card, or to CR him off his marginal hand. The nice thing about CR'ing here is that even if he shoves, I get the correct odds to call. BUT...the equity of my hand would also have allowed me to just check-call here. There was absolutely no need to CR here vs a fish since the pot odds I received were already great, and if I could earn a few more bucks on the river, check-calling here would already have been very +EV, without the variance.

That does not mean I will stop bluffing completely though, nor 3-betting light, though 4-betting light is something I only do now vs people who are really asking for it. I am trying to reduce my light 3-betting frequency when out of position, but when I do so, I do with hands that will make me look like a spewmonkey:

I obviously did not make a value bet on this river even while it's a standard spot to do so, but I really wanted to show down 72o here. Villain will probably give me MUCH less respect when 3-betting vs him when I do so occasionally with total junk, compared to doing so with 56s/33 etc.

Semi-bluffing stays insanely profitable though, and it will stay an important part of my game, be it a check-raise with an underpair (semi-bluffing to 2 outs) on dry boards OOP, but people give me no credit anyways when I have relatively loose stats at a table. If people play so bad at NL100, I got no need to really go fancy, since they'll pay off anyways as long as I show I occasionally make some moves (for much smaller pots):

The difference with this hand compared to the earlier 67s hand is that this is a semi-bluff where I can fold to a shove, AND lack the implied odds since I do not know whether hitting two pair is good here.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

2008-06-08T22:45:00.000-07:00

Just like any sunday the day starts looking for juicy tables full of fish. And there were tons of them.

This only leads to one problem. When there are like a hundred tables, and like a million fish, why can't I get one of those tables for myself? Every juicy table I manage to find there are atleast 1 or 2 sharks who just don't allow me to bust the fish by myself.

Contrary to the title, I actually did quite decently. Managed to put in around 3k hands, won 2.4 buyins and ended 23rd in a freeroll donkament from my Rakeback site, which sadly only earned me $55.

It was one of those days where KK runs into AA from half-stack fish constantly, sets do not hold up over half the time, AA loses a bunch of times after getting most the money in good, and the large bluffs never seem to work. You know what I'm talking about, those days are sundays.

There were quite some interesting hands but the most interesting ones were vs other cardrunners members.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($100.50)
UTG+1		($101.50)
CO		($316.30)
BTN		($100.00)
SB		($112.20)
Hero		($101.50)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is BB

3 folds, BTN raises to $3.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $12.50, BTN calls $9

Villain in question is a CR member, is very solid and observant. He probably also knows who I am, yet that didn't stop him from attacking the blinds almost every time he was on the CO or button. I do not mind that, except when I am the BB. I expect him to know I will 3bet him often because of that, so I chose to do so at first with a polarized range to see if he'll start 4-betting me or calling in position.

Flop: ($25.50, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

Not a bad flop, but not one I can cbet. Villain will probably be raising me here with tons of hands, regardless of if he actually hit it. So I decided to just check, call a flop bet and check raise all-in on most turns. Villain checked behind though which tells me he has a hand with showdown value.

Turn: ($25.50, 2 players)
Hero bets $17, BTN calls $17

Now I got a pair + flushdraw, and I do not expect him to bluffraise me here. If he was going to bluff, he was going to do so on the flop. So I just lead out.

River: ($59.50, 2 players)
Hero goes all-in $72, BTN calls $70.50

On the river, what will villain be thinking? I checked the flop on a drawy board, so I never have an overpair. Both the turn and river are 'blanks' so if he was ahead on the flop he must still be. Also, he must realize I know he has a hand with showdown value, so something worse than AQ, probably a lower pair. I decided my best play would be to just shove, since that line screams bluff.

Final Pot: $200.50
Hero shows:
BTN shows:

Hero wins $199 ( won +$97.50 )
BTN lost -$100.00

Hand 2 vs same villain. This hand is more interesting because villain knows exactly what kind of hand I have and makes a great play vs the wrong opponent:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($112.25)
UTG+1		($114.30)
CO		($299.80)
BTN		($101.50)
SB		($100.50)
Hero		($189.00)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is BB

3 folds, BTN raises to $3.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $2.50

TT is a monster vs villain's range, but I do not like to 3-bet it at this time because of the last hand. Villain will probably not fold to a 3bet, and may start 4-betting me to put me in a tough spot, especially after seeing me 3bet him with 63s earlier.

Flop: ($7.50, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $5, Hero calls $5

My hand is generally ahead on that board but vs this player I am not checkraising there. It's a good board to CR with hands like sets, marginal pairs which include a gutshot and perhaps some random hands without much equity here, like KQ. But I do not think doing so with hands like TT and JJ is optimal play vs this villain. It will be tough OOP vs him, but that's no reason to turn my hand into a bluff. So I just check-called.

Turn: ($17.50, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

I check here hoping to keep the pot small and villain checks behind. I think he never holds an overpair if he checks here, and obviously also never a set. That means my hand must still be good.

River: ($17.50, 2 players)
Hero bets $14, BTN raises to $45, Hero calls $31

I make a value bet on the blank river and villain decides to make my life hell by making a substantial raise here. But what is villain representing here after checking the turn?
How does my hand look to villain? I called him OOP preflop, which can mean multiple things except a strong overpair. I check-called the flop, which implies I either have a weak pair or a draw. So when I bet the river here, how strong could my hand possibly be?
Villain's river raise here is not bad because he knows the strength of my hand, but he should realize his line makes no sense vs players who will be thinking about their hands as well. So after raising here the only hands he can represent here are dueces or bluffs.

Final Pot: $107.50
Hero shows:
BTN shows:

Hero wins $104.50 ( won +$51 )
BTN lost -$53.50

Hand 3, this one is vs another cardrunners member:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($100.00)
UTG+1		($100.00)
CO		($100.00)
Hero		($135.60)
SB		($99.00)
BB		($81.50)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is BTN

1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $3.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $3.50, 2 folds

This villain is also quite aggressive preflop, and instead of stealing my blinds constantly, this one keeps stealing my button, which is even worse. vs most aggro players I would 3-bet here with a hand like this, but villain knows who I am, knows I could be 3betting him light, and could possibly do something annoying like 4-betting me here. So I elect to just call. It's my button after all.

Flop: ($8.50, 2 players)
UTG+1 bets $6, Hero calls $6

I totally miss the flop, it's a dry one, and vs a solid player I do not really like bluffraising here. If I raise I am representing 33, 44 or the nut flush draw. I would also be raising KQ here, but villain probably does not know that. But it's still my button, so I call.

Turn: ($20.50, 2 players)
UTG+1 bets $15, Hero calls $15

Another K arrives making it less likely for villain to hold a K here. But he also knows that I could be floating the flop with some random junk so decides to 2-barrel me. Standard play here is to fold, but villain may still have total air, so I call again. Even while I do not have anything yet, I still have the button and I'm not giving it up yet...

River: ($50.50, 2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $36, UTG+1 folds

Villain checks, and because he's solid, I know he will be inducing bluffs from me here with hands like JJ/QQ/AA perhaps even TT. I do not expect him to fold many made hands to a river bet. So I make a small enough bet here to get a fold out of hands like 22 or ace high, but large enough so 88 and 99 will probably also fold.

Final Pot: $50.50

Hero wins $84 ( won +$23.50 )
UTG+1 lost -$24.50

6 Tabling

2008-06-07T14:10:00.001-07:00

I've been 6-tabling for the last few days, and it really is addicting. The first thing is that when I have little time to play I can easily put in quite some hands, and the second thing is that I can play slightly more straightforward.

It actually is quite more relaxing as well since the variance seems lower. Today I managed to get AK allin vs KK, and get into a 3-way allin with a set vs overplayed aces and an OESD and lost both of them within a 2 minute timeframe. Oddly it didn't seem to bother me at all since I were running over the other tables quite well.

And because I'm slightly less prone to make donkey moves because I am occupied on more tables, I can exploit the other people who like to make donkey moves vs me. I simply lack the time to make too many stupid mistakes.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($312.05)
CO		($165.85)
Hero		($131.45)
SB		($128.90)
BB		($130.90)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 5 players) Hero is BTN

2 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, SB raises to $10, 1 fold, Hero calls $6.50

Flop: ($21, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $14, SB raises to $33, Hero calls $19

Turn: ($87, 2 players)
SB goes all-in $85.90, Hero calls $85.90

River: ($258.80, 2 players)

Final Pot: $258.80
Hero shows:
SB shows:

Hero wins $255.80 ( won +$126.90 )
SB lost -$128.90

Preflop call was quite standard for me. Villain liked to 3bet light and uses pretty bad 3bet sizing OOP.

Also cutting down on 4-bet bluffing preflop and making too many large bluffs postflop seems to lower my variance a bit, though I do like to make a somewhat spewy bluff at times when I think it's neutral EV but great for my image:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($49.00)
Hero		($128.60)
CO		($74.60)
BTN		($23.50)
SB		($168.50)
BB		($17.90)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1

1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 2 folds, SB raises to $11.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $8

Flop: ($24, 2 players)
SB bets $16, Hero calls $16

Turn: ($56, 2 players)
SB bets $36, Hero goes all-in $101.10, SB folds

Final Pot: $128

Hero wins $190.10 ( won +$61.50 )
SB lost -$63.50

Another reason to like 6-tabling is that when running pretty good (slightly over 12ptBB/100 in the last few days) that translates to $135 per hour excluding rakeback. Even with half that winrate, which should be sustainable, it's nothing to complain about.

I did not really tighten up that much preflop though, still running around 23/18 with an attempt to steal of around 35%. I did notice though that my postflop game has been simplified a bit, and most plays I make which differ from standard ABC poker is just because of known opponent tendencies, but not much else.

Tilty Business

2008-06-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

The last few days I've again managed to run quite bad. I do not like to post bad beats much, since I do not believe in them (every hand which has some equity no matter how small is supposed to suck out now and then) but the last days were again quite bad in this order. I lost over 10 buyins just in June (though I did manage to put around 10k hands in so far).

Examples are getting AA vs KK/QQ cracked a few times all in preflop for large amounts, or having a possibly tilting image at the table (losing 2 huge pots in a single orbit) and managing to get AK vs AQ in preflop and again get sucked out.

But the problem is even after quitting a bit and playing a bit later, I often made some very high variance plays. For instance, check-raising a gutshot vs a regular who I see around quite often in a 4 bet pot 150BB deep and getting called by top set. These plays are not that terrible in themselves, since I want regulars to know I can do some crazy stuff so they put their money in lighter, but the frequency of doing total donkey moves was a bit to high. Check-raising total air or a gutshot allin like 0.5% of the time in a certain spot is fine for your image and in the long run is probably +EV, but when running bad I make such moves way too often.

One bad psychological disadvantage of running bad is the effect on your bankroll. When you manage to get AA allin preflop vs KK for $250, even while you lost 250BB's, the difference for your bankroll is $500 compared to when your hand would have held up. Get AK AI vs AQ 3 times in a row for 100BB and lose all 3, the losses are $300, but it seems mentally as if you are $600 down compared to hands 'holding up'.

Today I decided to 6-table a bit to keep myself from overthinking situations and playing a bit tighter than usual, and I noticed a well kept secret which the best winning players in poker try to keep for themselves:

People suck at poker.

Seriously, I was playing on 6 tables while the loosest table was somewhere about 32% vpip, and while most players had somewhat decent stats, most players at NL100 just play terrible. So why should I bother to spew chips around making fancy moves too often when people just lack fundamental preflop and postflop skills?

My profit does not come from large multistreet bluffs or great hero calls/folds. My profit comes mostly because I do not forget to make that 18BB valuebet on the river in a 43BB pot with middle pair when I think villain holds an underpair most of the time or second pair worse kicker while many other players fail to extract value vs me in that same spot. It comes from inducing tons of bluffs from other people by taking a bit more passive line with marginal TP hands or marginal overpairs, instead of overplaying them, while when the situation is reversed, many people deny me the mandatory river bluff in some situations because they try to protect their marginal hands too much.

Same counts for overplaying hands, which I do quite often as well when tilting, and the general reason for completely misplaying a hand in such a situation is probably because of the mindset tilt gives. Look at the following hand for instance, villain ran pretty bad, and probably was thinking 'My hand must be good this time. Finally a board without overcards, let's get it in!' instead of 'How do I extract most value from villain's overcard holdings or bluffs and keeping my losses vs overpairs small?'

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($129.15)
CO		($115.40)
BTN		($104.00)
SB		($38.00)
Hero		($101.65)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 5 players) Hero is BB

2 folds, BTN raises to $3.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $12.50, BTN calls $9

Flop: ($25.50, 2 players)
Hero bets $17, BTN goes all-in $91.50, Hero calls $72.15

Turn: ($206.15, 2 players)

River: ($206.15, 2 players)

Final Pot: $203.80
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

BTN wins $2.35 ( lost -$101.65 )
Hero wins $200.80 ( won +$99.15 )

Villain held a strong hand here, but shoving this flop only causes overcard holdings to fold and only gets called by better. Villain complained for 5 minutes about what a cooler that flop was, instead of realizing he misplayed his hand here.

Another hand from yesterday was also quite interesting. It was a spot where I could be vs a fullhouse, but I expected villain to never fold a J here if I made a somewhat silly play. I also expected a J to be much more likely for villain to hold than a fullhouse, because of the flop play. I cbet there because people without a J or fullhouse could simply not continue when I bet into a million callers, which pretty much locks down villain's hand as a single set or a J. So I raised to 444 on the river, which kinda means I represent a fullhouse 4's full of jacks, and villain is smart enough to give me absolutely no credit for a fullhouse here and call me with weak trips:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG	AO1715	($133.70)
UTG+1	inyoung	($56.50)
CO	BRONCOAA	($37.75)
BTN	Hero	($612.35)
SB	coimbra83	($159.10)
BB	Schefflowski	($100.00)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is BTN

1 fold, inyoung calls $1, 1 fold, Hero raises to $4.50, coimbra83 calls $4, Schefflowski calls $3.50, inyoung calls $3.50

Flop: ($18, 4 players)
coimbra83 checks, Schefflowski checks, inyoung checks, Hero bets $10, coimbra83 calls $10, Schefflowski folds, inyoung folds

Turn: ($38, 2 players)
coimbra83 checks, Hero checks

River: ($38, 2 players)
coimbra83 bets $17, Hero raises to $444, coimbra83 calls $127.60

Final Pot: $327.20
coimbra83 shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $623.60 ( won +$165.10 )
coimbra83 lost -$159.10
Schefflowski lost -$4.50
inyoung lost -$4.50

If other people make bad plays like shoving or calling in these spots, why should I bother?

Butchering Hands for Dummies

2008-06-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

Sunday was pretty terrible both in luck and me making some pretty stupid plays. Started the session with a nice KK vs AA for 150BB, where I held the KK, and from there on it went downwards for a bit.

There was one hand where I butchered it quite a bit, which was a hand where I floated the flop with nothing but backdoor draws in a 3bet pot 170BB deep, and bet the turn large when checked to while holding 15 outs instead of taking a free card, getting myself committed to call the shove.

After that it was time to get some revenge though. These were the most interesting hands:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
4 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

Hero		($137.00)
BTN		($110.60)
SB		($163.90)
BB		($79.15)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 4 players) Hero is CO

Hero raises to $3.50, BTN calls $3.50, 2 folds

Flop: ($8.50, 2 players)
Hero bets $6, BTN calls $6

Villain in question played quite odd. He did seem to float me quite a bit and loved representing hands, but there was little consistency in his game. He was hard to figure out. He also called raises with almost any suited K or Q, and played way too many hands preflop. On the flop, I made a standard cbet and villain instacalled my cbet. This is generally a weak hand which is not folding, but rarely a king. I do not know this opponent well enough to know if this timing tell is the same for him, but I decide to keep in mind that I probably hold the best hand, and need to extract value from his bluffing range.

Turn: ($20.50, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $20.50, Hero calls $20.50

River: ($61.50, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $45, Hero calls $45

This probably looked quite odd for villain since I checkcalled two streets with just a pair of 9's, but he gave his hand away on the flop.

Final Pot: $151.50
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $149.50 ( won +$74.50 )
BTN lost -$75.00

This hand was vs another CR member:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($98.50)
UTG+1		($119.55)
CO		($169.90)
Hero		($100.00)
SB		($81.40)
BB		($116.75)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is BTN

UTG raises to $3.50, UTG+1 calls $3.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $16, 2 folds, UTG calls $12.50, UTG+1 calls $12.50

UTG+1 is a Cardrunners member, and is very solid. He knows who I am, and he will recognize this as a good spot to squeeze. Obviously very thrilled to hold a strong hand here, since he'll give me less credit. The other person, well, he's just dead money anyways.

Flop: ($49.50, 3 players)
UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $31, UTG folds, UTG+1 calls $31

If I did not hold an ace here I'd probably cbet here a decent amount of the time, especially with hands that have no chance on winning if called. So I may check KK here, but will be betting 67s etc. Villain knows this probably, so I bet.

Turn: ($111.50, 2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero checks

If I were bluffing the flop I would rarely continue on the turn in a 3bet pot. So decided to check behind, hoping to get some value from JJ or so on the river.

River: ($111.50, 2 players)
UTG+1 goes all-in $72.55, Hero calls $53

I do not like villain's play here. TT could be best but he's never getting called by worse, so it seems he's turning TT into a bluff hoping I fold QQ or so. But vs my squeezing range, TT does pretty good so if he knows me well a check-call would have been a better play by him.

Final Pot: $217.50
UTG+1 shows:
Hero shows:

UTG+1 wins $19.55 ( lost -$100 )
Hero wins $214.50 ( won +$114.50 )
UTG lost -$16.00

Hand 3:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($137.80)
UTG+1		($100.00)
CO		($73.30)
Hero		($100.00)
SB		($126.10)
BB		($153.80)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is BTN

3 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($7.50, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $6, BB calls $6

New table, I do not know villain well but he insta-checked the flop to me and instacalled my cbet. After this he leads the turn for around half-pot. The hands that seem the most likely for him to hold here are hands like 89, which hit the flop and improve on the turn. I do not expect a pair + open ended straight draw to fold to a raise here that often if he's bad enough, so decide to make a small raise allowing me to have enough money left to make a reasonable river bluff.

Turn: ($19.50, 2 players)
BB bets $10, Hero raises to $33, BB calls $23

River: ($85.50, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero goes all-in $57.50, BB folds

Final Pot: $85.50

Hero wins $140 ( won +$40 )
BB lost -$42.50

For the rest I did pretty well and when one table broke up I was playing heads-up vs the last one who refused to leave. He played pretty weak, and I had quite an edge on him. Took me 5 minutes to get his stack, though he started with only 70BB. All in all I ended the day 1.8 buyins down, which is not bad considering I lost a few pots of over 150BB's at the start of the session.

I Love Full Tilt

2008-06-01T08:16:00.000-07:00

Haven't played a single hand last week since monday, generally because of lack of time or being a bit too tired to play after work. Spewing off chips while not playing my A game is something I try to prevent. Yesterday on the other hand I decided to put in a short session. It was 1am, I would probably be playing my C game, but it was saturday, which means my C game is +EV at the tables.

Some interesting hands:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

Hero		($145.45)
UTG+1		($85.40)
CO		($120.60)
BTN		($127.05)
SB		($105.50)
BB		($41.60)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is UTG

Hero raises to $3.50, 4 folds, BB calls $2.50

UTG with T9s, pretty standard open. Well, not really, but table seemed weak.

Flop: ($7.50, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5, BB calls $5

BB insta-checked to me, making it pretty obvious he does not have a K or has a weak K, but he's probably not going to fold to a cbet here. This asks for a multistreet bluff or checking and giving up. I do have some backdoor outs, so I chose the first option. After betting, villain called nearly instantly. Seems very unlikely he holds a K here.

Turn: ($17.50, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $11, BB calls $11

Villain thought for a bit, probably like 2 seconds or so, and checked again. I picked up a backdoor draw, and think this is a mandatory 2 barrel. I could check behind here, but since I'm quite sure he does not hold a king, I prefer the second barrel.

River: ($39.50, 2 players)
BB goes all-in $22.10, Hero calls $22.10

Final Pot: $83.70
Hero shows:
BB shows:

Hero wins $80.70 ( won +$39.10 )
BB lost -$41.60

Hand 2:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($138.15)
UTG+1		($43.60)
Hero		($120.75)
BTN		($90.40)
SB		($103.10)
BB		($130.05)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is CO

UTG raises to $3.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $3.50, 3 folds

Villain plays like 33/30, and his UTG range will be pretty huge. Other notes about villain is that he loves to two-barrel regardless of board texture. Easy preflop call with this hand vs him, since I could get two streets of value out of him with top pair should I hit.

Flop: ($8.50, 2 players)
UTG bets $8, Hero calls $8

VS his total range I flop a monster, but it's not one I want to build a huge pot with yet. I assume any spade, T or J will be good for my hand so I elect to just call here.

Turn: ($24.50, 2 players)
UTG bets $16, Hero raises to $45, UTG folds

He loves to two-barrel, and here I expect any spade, T, J or 8 will be good for my hand, but since he still does not need to hold a hand here that often I think a semi-bluff here is fine.

Final Pot: $56.50

Hero wins $82.70 ( won +$26.20 )
UTG lost -$27.50

Hand 3:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($130.60)
CO		($116.45)
Hero		($101.35)
SB		($119.85)
BB		($146.95)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 5 players) Hero is BTN

2 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($7.50, 2 players)
BB bets $2, Hero raises to $10.50, BB calls $8.50

Villain in question is a total nutcase, running somewhere around 71/31. Him leading into me here makes it very unlikely he actually holds something, since he's the type to slowplay when he holds something. Further, it's not polite to donklead into me, and I probably hold the best hand and I'll do the backdoor-flush-draw-own if not. So pretty standard raise and two-barrel most non-spade turns.

Turn: ($28.50, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $21, BB calls $21

My hand improved, and I think villain is on a draw here, so I still want to charge flush draws and make a second bet.

River: ($70.50, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

He called $21 with a gutshot OOP, wtf? Added him to buddy list.

Final Pot: $70.50
BB shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $67.50 ( won +$32.50 )
BB lost -$35.00

Hand 4:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($112.65)
UTG+1		($146.25)
CO		($117.45)
Hero		($100.00)
SB		($97.50)
BB		($121.15)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is BTN

3 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, SB calls $3, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($10.50, 3 players)
SB checks, BB bets $10.50, Hero calls $10.50, SB folds

BB is again a total nutcase, running somewhere around 81/40. I flop the nuts here in my mind, even though he could have a 5 here. If he does I'll find out on later streets. There's no value in raising here obviously.

Turn: ($31.50, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

The K is a nice card to two-barrel and get him to fold worse hands than mine and stay in with better. Obviously not a good thing to do, and he could be trying to CR-own me. I decide to check behind and evaluate river.

River: ($31.50, 2 players)
BB bets $25, Hero calls $25

He bets quite large, so he's representing a strong hand here. I induced the bluff though so think I have to call here.

Final Pot: $81.50
Hero shows:
BB shows:

Hero wins $78.50 ( won +$39.50 )
SB lost -$3.50
BB lost -$39.00

Results:

2008-05-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

So my vacation is over, and only managed to play for about 42 hours during those two weeks.

Add rakeback to this and it comes down to around $2300 in 42.4 hours. I'm quite happy about both the hourly rate and how I approached it. Even while I played for way less hours than I could have put in, I never played when I was not in the right mood, and generally stopped sessions as soon as I noticed I was not playing my A game, even if I were sitting at juicy tables. My hourly rate could be a lot higher by playing more tables, but I have little interest in becoming a grinder, so I'll stick to 4 tables at the moment.

Oddly I won more per hour at NL50 than at NL100. The rakeback makes NL100 slightly better, but the players at NL50 are in general way less good than at NL100, which explains the difference.

My plans for now are quite simple. I will only be withdrawing rakeback which should be a nice supplement to my normal job, and will keep building my roll to get towards the higher limits. Bankroll management and tilt control are the key to this, and I think just withdrawing rakeback is a nice way to do so. The winnings or losses per day/week/month etc don't really matter, since I'll still be making money thanks to the rakeback I'll be withdrawing, and the limit I play at effects that. The bankroll itself should not be treated as money, but more as an investment capital.
Should I have to move down I earn less, and when I move up I make much more. I do however hope to move up to NL200 and higher relatively soon, but I do think that thanks to Cardrunners I'm capable to beat those limits should my bankroll be sufficient to play there.

Sunday - Being a Crazy Nit

2008-05-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

Last day of my vacation, so decided to grind it up a bit to end the vacation with nice result. One thing I noticed a lot during my vacation is how the games have changed at NL100. Everyone seems to know nowadays that a reraise does not always mean a strong hand. And it seems that every time there's a raise and a call everyone and their mother squeezes with any two cards. People are 4-betting with all kinds of trash hands and polarizing their ranges.

Some people try to exploit that by being a Nit. Never getting into marginal spots, only playing strong hands and never getting out of line. Only while that seems a good play, everybody who's somewhat decent uses a HUD nowadays which means those 15/11 players just don't get any action. They still beat this game for marginal winnings in general, so something like 2-3ptBB/100.

I decided to experiment a bit on sunday. I was not going to 3-bet light that often, never was going to squeeze or 4-bet bluff, never were going to call a 3-bet with a marginal hand, but I was going to play in such a way that my table image, at least the stats people got on me in their HUD's were still going to be somewhat crazy.

So I played like a total nit other than a few minor adjustments:
- Nits don't steal enough preflop, generally around 20% or less. I kept my attempt to steal as high as possible and on some tables I raised every single button when folded around to me. My attempt to steal was 52% for the day.
- Nits play too tight. I ran around 24/21 for the day, which quite disguises that I'm trying to be a Nit.
- Nits don't do crazy stuff. That's good, I didn't either. Other than some random large river bluffs when having a decent read about opponent's hand strength.
- Nits don't defend their blinds enough. I didn't either, I played extremely tight from small blind, never stealing or restealing, same for the big blind. Yet if the SB even so much as glanced at my BB fireworks were going to show at the table. I think I 3-bet every single hand in the BB if the SB opened a bit too often into me. Play me out of position? Pay for it!

So my stats were going to be all in the red for people who trust their HUD stats, and my table image should be somewhat of a total nutcase, even while I played an extremely standard postflop game with only a few bluffs tossed in. I valuebet thinner, in one pot even with ace-high getting called by a worse ace-high, which was quite funny:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($67.90)
UTG+1		($92.80)
CO		($131.55)
BTN		($102.45)
SB		($10.50)
Hero		($198.45)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is BB

2 folds, CO raises to $3.50, 2 folds, Hero raises to $12.50, CO calls $9

Flop: ($25.50, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($25.50, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: ($25.50, 2 players)
Hero bets $16, CO calls $16

Final Pot: $57.50
Hero shows:
CO shows:

Hero wins $54.65 ( won +$26.15 )
CO lost -$28.50

This was pretty standard vs that opponent though. The villain in question is a pretty moody player, hates to fold, and cbetting that board with AK is something you only do vs that player when you dislike money. But on the river it was pretty obvious villain either held nothing or dueces. As played, I expected my river bet to get called by a worse ace-high or even a king. Villain in question is also prone to tilt, so I cannot let such an opportunity pass.

Another fun hand was vs a player who played quite solid, but I think he thought I was a total nutcase. It was pretty obvious that he either had AK or AQ in this spot, perhaps AJ, and was slowplaying vs me to extract more value. So I decided to pot the turn and overbet the river, not really expected villain to fold much:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($108.75)
UTG+1		($105.95)
CO		($115.60)
BTN		($63.85)
Hero		($217.10)
BB		($113.05)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is SB

4 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($7, 2 players)
Hero bets $5, BB calls $5

Turn: ($17, 2 players)
Hero bets $17.50, BB calls $17.50

River: ($52, 2 players)
Hero bets $101, BB calls $87.05

Final Pot: $226.10
Hero shows:
BB shows:

Hero wins $237.05 ( won +$110.05 )
BB lost -$113.05

I managed to drag in over 3 buyins in 1.5 hours or so and quit for the day. I think I'll experiment with the Crazy Nit style a bit more often.

Early Weekend

2008-05-25T00:44:00.000-07:00

Friday and saturday were pretty much a disaster. Started friday losing 3 buyins over two sessions, and made some quite stupid plays. Decided I wasn't playing my A game so spent my time doing more useful things, like watching the latest "Rambo" movie for new ideas on how to deal with fish.

Anyways, saturday I was quite happy about my game and put tons of hands in, probably somewhere around 3k. Many large pots where I went in as favorite kept moving in the wrong direction but the other hands I played slowly made up for it.

There was one interesting hand on friday though vs another Cardrunners member:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($155.95)
UTG+1		($113.50)
Hero		($101.50)
BTN		($100.00)
SB		($49.05)
BB		($237.60)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is CO

2 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, SB calls $3, BB calls $2.50

Got a monster so standard open...not really, but I expect my steals from the CO to succeed more often than from button with solid player in BB. My steal attempt was around 49% so perhaps this was a fold preflop.

Flop: ($10.50, 3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $7.50, SB folds, BB raises to $28, Hero raises to $94.50, BB goes all-in $234.10, Hero calls $3.50

I think villain would be CR'ing me here with pretty much anything he holds, be it a gutshot, overcards with A of hearts, some total air, small PP etc. This board looks to miss me quite often, so I would do so to in his spot. But because this is such a good spot to bluffraise, I think a bet/3bet is in order here and I should have quite some folding equity left here. There is another reason to shove here instead of call like I would do vs more taggy players with a disguised draw: I think his checkraise size here seems to be too large for a set, so I put him on air or a draw much more than a genuine hand he wants to get it in with.

Turn: ($342.60, 2 players)

River: ($342.60, 2 players)

Final Pot: $206.50
Hero shows:
BB shows:

Hero wins $203.50 ( won +$102 )
BB wins $136.10 ( lost -$101.5 )
SB lost -$3.50

Anyways, saturday started out well. This was the largest pot for me from the day:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

Hero		($200.00)
CO		($328.60)
BTN		($154.95)
SB		($198.35)
BB		($108.50)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 5 players) Hero is UTG

Hero raises to $3.50, 2 folds, SB calls $3, 1 fold

UTG with TJo, but it's only 5-handed and but pretty much everyone has a large stack. I had a normal TAG image so far, and think my UTG opens should get decent respect. Because of stack sizes, I thought this was a decent enough hand to open with and hope to get the blinds or steal the button.

Flop: ($8, 2 players)
SB bets $8, Hero raises to $21, SB raises to $34, Hero calls $13

SB donkleads into me. I do not know what it means, but with an open ended straight draw I made a semi-bluff here to either get him to fold some random junk or fold. Also don't mind building the pot a bit in case I hit. Villain made a very small 3bet here which made me think he probably had a set here. My hand is well disguised, there's enough money left behind so obviously called here with these odds.

Turn: ($76, 2 players)
SB bets $76, Hero calls $76

I hit the nuts, and my hand is still underrepresented. I either have an overpair here or AQ. With the pot size, and thinking villain had a set, I almost shoved but decided against it. What if villain was overplaying AQ here?

I decided to just flat and get the rest in on the river. Would suck if the board paired, but I was still going to get the rest in should it happen. No need to give villain a chance to make a hero laydown now.

River: ($228, 2 players)
SB goes all-in $84.85, Hero calls $84.85

Final Pot: $397.70
SB shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $394.70 ( won +$196.35 )
SB lost -$198.35

And the most fun hand so far. UTG posted out of position, CO limps behind, I obviously raise, and CO does the 'limp-reraise' trick, which is something I never understood. Obviously I'm weary about aces, the CO should know me well enough to know I do not need much as cards to take advantage of dead money in the pot, but if he got aces that's fine. I got kings!

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($24.40)
UTG+1		($128.15)
CO		($174.60)
BTN		($103.55)
SB		($99.00)
Hero		($146.90)

[UTG posted $1]
Pre-flop: ($2.50, 6 players) Hero is BB

UTG checks, 1 fold, CO calls $1, 2 folds, CO says "ok jag", Hero raises to $6, UTG calls $5, UTG+1 says "jag", UTG+1 says "lol", CO raises to $24.50, Hero raises to $65, UTG folds, CO says "jag off", CO calls $40.50

Flop: ($136.50, 2 players)
UTG+1 says "dont loose all my monmey", UTG+1 says "please", Hero goes all-in $81.90, CO calls $81.90, UTG+1 says "omg"

Turn: ($300.30, 2 players)

River: ($300.30, 2 players)

Final Pot: $300.30
CO shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $297.30 ( won +$150.4 )
CO lost -$146.90
UTG lost -$6.00

Some Boring Hands

2008-05-19T00:48:00.000-07:00

Just a few more hands from the last few days. Let's start with the one I misplayed the most:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($105.85)
Hero		($126.15)
CO		($132.45)
BTN		($116.70)
SB		($322.65)
BB		($33.20)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1

UTG raises to $3.5, Hero calls $3.5, 1 fold, BTN raises to $15.5, 2 folds, UTG folds, Hero raises to $39, BTN goes all-in $116.7, Hero calls $77.7

Flop: ($238.4, 2 players)

Turn: ($238.4, 2 players)

River: ($238.4, 2 players)

Final Pot: $238.40
Hero shows:
BTN shows:

BTN wins $235.4 ( won +$118.7 )
UTG lost -$3.50
Hero lost -$116.70

Villain in question is a regular Nit. Playing like 13.6/11.5. The UTG raiser is playing around 19/14. I can raise AK here obviously, but it's less profitable vs his tight range since he'll just 4-bet or fold, and should I get 4bet by him, I actually have to fold in this spot.

An alternative option here was to just call and play the hand postflop, and possibly induce a squeeze from someone behind me. Especially the SB was pretty squeeze happy but overall people were pretty aggressive behind me, so I elected to take that option.

Only I got raised by the only real Nit at the table, who plays so bloody straightforward that he always has a hand in this spot. But I second guessed myself, assumed his range could be wider here because of me coldcalling and got it in.

Not a bad result at all, since we were just flipping with some dead money in the pot, but his range just crushed me here.

Another one:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($225.95)
Hero		($127.50)
BTN		($83.95)
SB		($99.85)
BB		($313.20)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 5 players) Hero is CO

1 fold, Hero raises to $3.5, 1 fold, SB calls $3, BB raises to $17, Hero calls $13.5, SB folds

Villain is playing around 25/25, me around 24/21 with an attempt to steal of around 41%. This seems a spot in which I can both 4bet or take a flop, and I almost 4-bet here because villain could just be squeezing here. But even while villain is pretty aggressive, this is the first time he actually 3-bet me from the blinds. In position I mix it up here.

Flop: ($37.5, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Villain let's me know here that he has a hand or absolutely nothing, since if he isn't cbetting a K-rag board as a bluff, what boards will he cbet? It's also pretty obvious I got a good hand, or I would not have called him preflop. If I bet here I probably get 1 street of value out of a hand like QQ/JJ, 0 out of bluffs. Checking behind gives him a chance to bluff the turn and under represents my hand.

Turn: ($37.5, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $20, BB calls $20

His second check here makes me think a hand like QQ/JJ is the most likely, just hoping to get to a cheap showdown. I think he would lead TT or worse here, and a lot of air, so I make a bet here which I expect to get called by QQ/JJ.

River: ($77.5, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $44, BB calls $44

Him calling the turn bet pretty much narrowed his range down to QQ/JJ so I made another bet not too large to get some value here.

Final Pot: $165.50
BB shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $162.5 ( won +$81.5 )
BB lost -$81.00
SB lost -$3.50

And hand number 3:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($102.70)
CO		($66.60)
BTN		($165.30)
SB		($14.50)
Hero		($100.00)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 5 players) Hero is BB

2 folds, BTN raises to $3.5, 1 fold, Hero raises to $12.5, BTN calls $9

First hand at this table. Always nice to get AK vs a button open in very first hand. I do not know anything about the player though, but this is a 3bet 100% of the time.

Flop: ($25.5, 2 players)
Hero bets $17, BTN raises to $50, Hero goes all-in $87.5, BTN says "oops", BTN calls $37.5

Even while this hand plays itself, since I'm definitely not folding TPTK with backdoor flush draw vs an unknown in a 3bet pot for 100BB's, one thing is interesting here. Even while it's an unknown, the bet size he uses to raise me with is for many people quite a tell. Round numbers are often draws/bluffs, while the more odd numbers are more like value bets. Another tell was that he raised this nearly instantly. If I were sitting in this spot with AQ, I would snapcall here too.

Turn: ($200.5, 2 players)

River: ($200.5, 2 players)
BTN says "lol!!!"

Final Pot: $200.50
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $197.5 ( won +$97.5 )
BTN lost -$100.00

High card 4 on turn:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($114.75)
UTG+1		($96.00)
CO		($100.00)
BTN		($305.05)
SB		($117.40)
Hero		($232.75)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is BB

UTG raises to $3.5, UTG+1 calls $3.5, 3 folds, Hero calls $2.5

UTG is a pretty solid TAG, UTG+1 is a total nutcase, so I call here to see if I can spot a 4 on the flop.

Flop: ($11, 3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, UTG+1 checks

No 4, but this flop misses most A high holdings which UTG can have, and his opening range also includes many lower pocketpairs. So standard play here is to checkraise since my 4's are never good if called. Villain takes the sensible route, probably because of the nutcase behind him, and does not cbet here.

Turn: ($11, 3 players)
Hero bets $8, 1 fold, UTG+1 calls $8

Checkraise failed, and my hand has absolutely 0 showdown value here, so I choose to take a stab here. Villain surprisingly calls, but with my image (running 24/21 here) it's possible he sees through it and realizes a pocket pair higher than the 6 could be good here, or even ace high. Plan is to bet any river after he calls.

River: ($27, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 checks

A pretty annoying spot here. If I bet here ace high will fold and so will any pocketpair, and I will only get called by better hands. If I check here, all those hands will check behind. I do not think villain will ever be betting the river with less than a jack, which is extremely unlikely for him to have here. Nothing I can do here except checking. And villain played this hand perfectly.

Final Pot: $27
UTG+1 shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $25.65 ( won +$14.15 )
UTG lost -$3.50
UTG+1 lost -$11.50

Something Clicked...

2008-05-18T23:05:00.000-07:00

After my last update's smooth graph I hadn't bothered to post any updates, so I'll start by giving the full coverage of what happened in between then and now:

Managed to work my roll up to around $6k, moved up to NL200, ran bad (3.5k below equity in allin situations in 4 days time), went on monkey tilt and lost around 75% of my roll within a week. Obviously had some leaks in my bankroll management.

Well, with the boring part out of the way, why did I return to make useless posts in the Den? One reason is that I am free from work for two weeks now so have enough free time on my hands to practice how it would be to be playing professional poker. So far I cannot complain about the results after this week, even while it is a small sample:

The only beat here is that I managed to put in less hands than I would in a normal week, but that is because I have been scheduling my days like as if I were really a professional poker player. Which involves watching movies throughout the night, sleeping out late, practicing the guitar, trying to build my own linux distribution etc. In between all that, I still manage to put like 1 or 2 hours per day into actually playing at the tables, which seems reasonable, and more hours watching Cardrunners videos and analyzing hand histories.

So there's the real reason for returning to the Den. I need a place to put the hands that were interesting, but not interesting enough to discuss on the forums.

What has changed in my game compared to my old game? I think spending a lot of time watching videos on Cardrunners made something 'click' for me, which is the way I approached the hand. I always used to be worried about consistency in my game, like 'if I held XX here I would bet xx, so now I'll bet xx with this bluff aswell.' Or I would be 3-betting a loose cutoff opener on the button with hands like A8s, 56s, even J7s etc, while those are hands which actually have the ability to hit flops somewhat. Why not use those hands to play a pot in position of someone with a huge opening range?

Poker is all about range vs range, and balancing your ranges to maximally exploit your opponent's tendencies. I used to 2-barrel and 3-barrel bluff more often in the past, but right now I think I found a good balance. Which is pretty much accomplished by using a good, balanced range vs specific opponents, and adjusting constantly based on previous occurrences/ image etc.

Don't understand a word of what I were saying there? That's great! If everyone understood that, the lower limits would be playing like 5/10.

Some spots still ask for an old fashioned 3 barrel bluff though, like this one yesterday:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($47.15)
CO		($104.90)
Hero		($102.15)
SB		($98.50)
BB		($238.15)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 5 players) Hero is BTN

2 folds, Hero raises to $3.5, SB calls $3, 1 fold

Flop: ($8, 2 players)
SB bets $1, Hero raises to $11, SB calls $10

Turn: ($30, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $23, SB calls $23

River: ($76, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero goes all-in $64.65, SB folds

Final Pot: $76

Hero wins $137.65 ( won +$35.5 )
SB lost -$37.50

Villain's flop play here pretty much said he either had a flush draw or a weak ace, perhaps a jack. The K on the turn could have helped him, but for the rest it seemed a mandatory 2-barrel. On the river, I could think of no hands my 7 high could beat, and if I followed up my play here and shoved the river I would represent 2 pair at the least. Villain is quite the calling station though so there are a decent amount of aces he would probably look me up with, like AQ (does not seem likely thanks to flop play) or perhaps AT, and any two pair, so this was an easy shove. Another optional way to play this hand vs him was to just fold to his $1 bet on the flop...

Another play I like to use more is a more advanced play, explained by Raptor from Cardrunners. It's called the 'head-explosion bet'. It's a value bet which is sized to cause your opponents to think "omg, I am so stupid!" and their heads literally explode, or if they are lucky, will just cause them to tilt a bit. Which makes it easier to get the rest of their money later on.

I should have some examples from NL50 where I bet like $8 into a $89 pot to get called by queen-high, but I don't feel like spending the rest of the day looking for it, so I'll just this one from a few hours ago to demonstrate it:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
3 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

BTN		($100.00)
SB		($101.50)
Hero		($231.65)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 3 players) Hero is BB

BTN raises to $3.5, 1 fold, Hero calls $2.5

Flop: ($7.5, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $5, Hero calls $5

Turn: ($17.5, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($17.5, 2 players)
Hero bets $6, BTN calls $6

Final Pot: $29.50
Hero shows:
BTN shows:

Hero wins $28.5 ( won +$14 )
BTN lost -$14.50

Preflop: Table just turned 3-handed and a 15/12 typical TAG opens the button. KQs can be raised for value here, but his range should be pretty wide now we are 3 handed, and it will hit quite some boards which he'll cbet.

Flop: Pretty easy spot. He has an ace or he doesn't. I got a hand, so no need to turn it into a bluff.

Turn: Great card, less likely for villain to have an ace now, and he would never be checking an ace here unless he dislikes money. He also did the 'think for a bit to keep you from betting the river' move and actually clicked the time button, so KK also seems unlikely.

River: Nice blank, so I got the nuts here in my mind, so I need to extract some value. The best possible hand he can have here are jacks, which would probably fold to a 2/3rd pot bet, and some medium pocket pairs would probably fold aswell. So I made a toned down version of the head-explosion bet, but would have bet like $2 here if I expected villain to hold something weaker like K high here. In the past I would probably have bet something like $11 here, which gets called less and does not have the same tilt-inducing factor.

The Grind

2007-12-25T13:53:00.001-08:00

Little update about the last two months here. I joined Cardrunners somewhere in November to work on my game since I definitely had some huge tilt issues and leaks in my game. Beating the fish has become easier, but now dealing with the regulars has become much easier as well.

One thing I changed is the duration of my sessions, which are now 1.5/2 hours maximum even on days when I am free, followed by a pokertracker review after every session. So a bit in line with the videos on cardrunners.

I've put in less than 60k hands in the last 2 months and started back at NL25 to work on the basics of my game. This is the graph from November and December, most hands at NL25 and NL50, about 13k hands at NL100:

One thing I changed in my game is bluffing much less vs villains who refuse to play their hands face up, but pound on those who do:

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Profiles and Stacks:

UTG	LOL_CHECKRAISE	($104.50)	14.3/11.7/4.2 (4618)
UTG+1	smoking oli	($121.40)	18.9/11.6/2.2 (4557)
CO	CountdeMonet88	($96.50)	16.4/6.8/2.5 (2729)
BTN	Hero	($271.60)	18.2/14.7/2.3 (346)
SB	cslack8909	($212.00)	19.3/14.3/2.0 (280)
BB	itsuxx	($98.40)	22.7/15.5/7.1 (2643)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is BTN

2 folds, CountdeMonet88 raises to $3.5, Hero calls $3.5, 1 fold, itsuxx calls $2.5

Flop: ($11, 3 players)
itsuxx checks, CountdeMonet88 bets $5, Hero raises to $17.45, itsuxx folds, CountdeMonet88 calls $12.45

Turn: ($45.9, 2 players)
CountdeMonet88 checks, Hero checks

River: ($45.9, 2 players)
CountdeMonet88 bets $20, Hero raises to $120, CountdeMonet88 folds

Final Pot: $85.90

Hero wins $182.9 ( won +$41.95 )
itsuxx lost -$3.50
CountdeMonet88 lost -$40.95

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
4 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Profiles and Stacks:

CO	Badtilt	($100.00)	60.2/10.0/1.5 (251)
BTN	TheOrangeman	($239.20)	20.3/14.9/3.2 (7954)
SB	Hero	($115.25)	16.4/13.1/2.6 (268)
BB	Jiffy Park	($195.10)	19.4/8.8/1.3 (1122)

[Badtilt posted $1]
Pre-flop: ($2.5, 4 players) Hero is SB

Badtilt checks, 1 fold, Hero raises to $5, Jiffy Park calls $4, Badtilt calls $4

Flop: ($15, 3 players)
Hero bets $11.25, Jiffy Park calls $11.25, 1 fold

Turn: ($37.5, 2 players)
Hero bets $26.25, Jiffy Park calls $26.25

River: ($90, 2 players)
Hero bets $68, 1 fold

Final Pot: $90

Hero wins $156 ( won +$45.5 )
Jiffy Park lost -$42.50
Badtilt lost -$5.00

Both hands don't really need much commenting, villain in hand one held an overpair pretty much 95% of the time, and villain in hand two a middle pair strength type of hand or draw here. The second ace lowers the chance he was after a nut flush draw, and would have expected a raise somewhere along the hand, so I assumed a one-pair hand seemed most likely for this villain.

Sick Hand vs 4th Level Thinker

2007-12-25T13:35:00.000-08:00

Villain is a solid opponent, generally TAG. His hand range is about the same as that of many 2+2 and CR members, meaning he'll raise limpers a lot and has a wide range from the button, even while his overall stats are tight.

I was sitting with villain on two tables and have been 3-betting him quite often, and 3-betting his isolation raises.

His attempt to steal was around 37/38% at this table and that I played back at him didn't seem to slow him down much.

Anyways, when I got 4-bet here I wanted to muck but had to think about something from one of Cardrunners videos. If you 3bet a solid player often enough, he'll generally start 4-betting very light but the first one is generally a bluff since he'll expect you to fold, since your own range is wide already.

So I figured his range here would include quite some hands I was favorite over, like JQo/s, TJ, and low pairs for flips and perhaps some worse aces even. Thinking of that, I got this 19/14/2 player to call my shove with 85s (good call on his side since his pot odds were quite good, and he correctly estimated my shoving range would not only include overpairs).

Results were less nice off course, but I got a full stack in as a good favorite.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Profiles and Stacks:

UTG	IFoldForFut	($156.25)	19.8/16.8/
CO	jonesy24	($85.50)	29.4/15.7/2.9
BTN	cslack8909	($100.10)	19.3/14.3/2.0
SB	Hero	($101.25)	19.1/15.2/2.6
BB	JiggaTing	($101.50)	25.1/17.2/)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 5 players) Hero is SB

2 folds, cslack8909 raises to $3.5, Hero raises to $12, 1 fold, cslack8909 raises to $48, Hero goes all-in $101.25, cslack8909 calls $52.1

Flop: ($202.35, 2 players)

Turn: ($202.35, 2 players)

River: ($202.35, 2 players)

Final Pot: $201.20
cslack8909 shows:
Hero shows:

cslack8909 wins $198.2 ( won +$98.1 )
Hero wins $1.15 ( lost -$100.1 )

Maximizing your Green line

2007-10-08T18:25:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking of a line from the Theory of Poker, and think it applies well to getting your 'green line' up:

"Every time you make a bet that maximizes expectation versus your opponent’s actual hand, you win, every time your opponent fails to maximize his expectation given your actual hand, you win."

Imagine you call a pf opening raise in LP, or a limper or two, when holding .
The flop comes down

Villain bets pot. You know he won't pay you off if you hit your flush, and aren't sure about ace outs, so you fold.

Your share of the sklansky bucks here means that even if villain has an extreme tight range your share of the chips is still about 35% of the chips in the pot. If you fold here you are losing all that equity. Even while it may be the correct play.

An example like this shows why it is a mistake to simply call behind two limpers with a hand like AJs or to just call a relatively loose MP raiser while you are on the button.

Simply because if you play too rigid opponents can deny you your Sklansky bucks.

If what I just typed makes no sense to you, you are not positional aware enough. Making sense?

PokerEV, great analysis software

2007-10-08T18:15:00.001-07:00

Someone from the 2+2 forums has created this nice piece of software. What it does is show you how well you are running, and has great filter options to help you analyze your leaks.

It can be downloaded from www.pokerevsoftware.com .

To explain, here's my graph from the last two weeks:

What do the lines mean? The red and the blue lines are about showdowns. The red line shows your Sklansky bucks in the hand, which pretty much means the same as your equity in the hand.

For instance, you hold AA on the flop, someone reraises you all-in on a rainbow flop, and the total pot is 200BB while 100BB are your own if you call. You read his hand strength correctly and call. Villain shows 22 while there's no 2 on the board nor backdoor draws. So your Sklansky bucks in the hand equal around (.92x200bb)-100bb = 84BB-rake.

If your aces hold up vs his 2 outs, you actually sucked out, since you win 100BB-rake instead of 84.

That is what the blue line shows. The example is a bit extreme, but the blue line shows your actual winnings in showdown situations. If you get paid off more than your equity in the hands the blue line is above the red one, and is lower if you do not get paid off enough or miss your draws or get outdrawn. It also answers the question about how 'rigged' online poker is: Even while I got some suckouts during these 11823 hands, the difference between my expected showdown winnings and real showdown winnings is only $24 while at one time I were running $50 over equity, and running $100 below equity 500 hands later. It seems the odds hold up on average.

The green line shows your hands that did not go to showdown compared to your actual winnings. How to interpret it depends on your play style and other factors. Like if you are playing with a bunch of donks and play quite tight fit-or-fold poker your green line will be below the blue line on average. This also applies to calling IP with good draws and folding if you miss. If you bluff in bad spots too often your green line will also be much lower.
If it's above the blue line it can also mean different things. It can either mean you play your draws aggressive, pick good spots to bluff, but can also mean you fail at getting your good hands to showdown enough.

What does my first graph show? Well, first of all, do not play after going out. Notice the 11 buyin downswing in 500 hands? Even while I was supposed to lose 'only' 7 buyins in 500 hands, I should not have played at all that night.

How to work on your leaks is by using the filters well. For instance, the previous graph is clouded by hands I folded in the blinds. This is my graph from hands where I voluntarily put money in the pot (filter: action preflop call or raise).

This graph is supposed to run extreme good for any break-even or better player, but it shows better contrast since it filters out the hands you folded in the blinds.

After applying this let's see how well I play my draws:

OESD:

So I run negative in these spot, so it may be interesting for me to look all those hands up and see how I can improve here.

Flushdraw (I filtered on any flushdraw)

Since the blue line is above the red line I ran lucky at flushdraws, but because the green is higher, I took enough pots down without hitting.

The luck bar shows how well you ran in all-in situations. Again the red line is your expected winnings, the blue your actual winnings. Here I ran about $43 over expectation in 113 all-in situations.

The analysis tab shows how your average betting is on each street compared to your equity in the hand. What you should look for here is that your bets on average are less than your equity in the hand on each street. For me, it seems on average I do fine here but maybe miss some value on the river I need to work on:

Pokerev seems to be in beta phase still, so it's free to use atm. I do not know if the designer has plans to go charge a fee for using it, but it seems to become even more useful than pokerstove for fixing your leaks.

If you want to know if this software is trustworthy, you could search the 2+2 forums for it, but so many users there are using it that it seems fine. Here's the thread that introduced the program:

2+2 Thread

How to Stop Tilting Against Calling Stations

2007-08-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: Every instance of fish in this post refers to the loose-passive calling stations kind of fish, not the nitty weak-tight ATM’s or other kinds of fish. Further, even while I may be using ‘he’ as personal pronoun when talking about fish, this does not mean I imply all fish are males. My sincere apologies to female fish out there.

Nothing can be more annoying to sharks than sitting in a pool of fish and missing all the flops after raising preflop for a long streak. So much dead money out there, but it seems the only one actually contributing dead money isn’t the fish calling your PF raise from the SB with J6s because it’s SOoTED, but it seems to be you. Every time you raise your AK/KQs etc either OOP or IP you get at least two callers, but to no avail. And your c-bets get no respect, yet you keep doing so because it’s ‘correct’ and because you could still have the best hand.

This can lead to many things, like ending up calling huge raises when you actually do manage to hit the flop, or worse, playing too timid like limping OOP just because of fear you’ll miss the flop again.

Why shouldn’t this affect sharks? Quite simple. Getting called by 2 fish and missing the flop is no bad result at all! Check/fold, next hand…

It’s quite simple, let’s say you hold AKo, raise preflop UTG to 4xBB, and get two callers who can be classified as calling stations. AK will hit top pair about 35% of the time, and you put less than 33% of the money in. That means you earned sklansky bucks even when missing the flop. The pot is now 12.5 to 13.5BB. Now you could c-bet like 8-10BB with your 6 outs, but if you expect to get called by at least one player like 80% of the time, that’s money you could have spent better.

So instead you check/fold, and use that saved money for the next times you hold AK. And when you actually do manage to hit one bloody flop get paid off decently by some fool who called you PF with A3o or K9.

Another trait of fish seems to be a quite particular one. It’s one advanced players make to induce a river bluff to get more value, but fish do so for other reasons.

Let’s say you end up in a multiway pot from LP. You hold a decent draw on a J high flop, and decide to take a look at the turn. On the turn the EP fish bets out again, and you call because you think he holds a weak hand. On the river an ace or king arrives, completely missing you, but fish bets out like $7 in a $20 pot.

Even while you KNOW exactly what this bet means when done by a fish (fish thinks he’s beat so he bets small to keep himself from losing much money ), I found out that raising in this spot is futile. I can raise to $20/25/30/37, and still the fish calls way too often with exactly the kind of hand he was representing: J with a lousy kicker.

There Is No Correct Play Style

2007-07-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

UTG+1 limped.
You are sitting on the CO with .
What do you do?

Answer: It depends…

In NL Holdem there are many different play styles to choose from, all with their own strengths and weaknesses.

A solid TAG will be making money because of having the best hand quite often. In a large % of the times where they are continuing postflop with a top pair hand, they will have the better kicker. Further a TAG will be trying to take a fair share of pots where they miss with continuation bets.

A smart LAG will be trying to take more than his share of the pots pre and postflop by trying to gauge the strength of their opponents hands and taking down pots when they have good folding equity. The second strength comes from getting paid off very well when they actually have a strong hand and someone with a hand like TPTK just doesn’t believe them anymore paying off for up to multiple buyins.

Tight-passives, also known as rocks, generally have a strong preflop hand when they play, and silly enough, a large part they lose compared to other play styles, which is taking down pots when they missed, they make up for by getting bluffed at too often. Even with an unimproved AK or AQ, they don’t seem to mind check-calling the flop, turn and sometimes even river.

These are the most common play styles, though there are many more like ultra-aggressive, loose-passive calling stations, ultra-nits and others.

I estimate most novice and intermediate poker players will try to figure out which play style works out the best for them, and stick to it as default play style.

But I think sticking to a default play style is a mistake. Even if one works out very well for you, it has certain disadvantages. Observant players can adjust accordingly after figuring you out, which is pretty easy for them if they use a HUD. Further, using a single play style can make you play hands in a sub-optimal way.

In my eyes someone who wants to become an advanced player should look at each situation individually and try to estimate the most EV way to play it. Think outside the box, and don’t even use logic such as “I am going to establish a TAG/LAG image and then change gears in a bit.” That logic may work for live tournaments/cash games, but has its flaws for online cash games. Image building doesn’t work on every player, since some people do not use HUD’s, and some people only look at their own cards and their TV.

Starting out with a default play style may have its merits when joining a new table without any info on the players yet, or if you multitable without a HUD. But if you want to be more flexible, you can avoid even this with some preparation, at least if you use a HUD and play on a PT-enabled site.

Before starting to play, open up a bunch of tables from your favorite site and let it datamine for about 30 minutes. In the meanwhile just browse some forums, check some hand histories from last session, watch some porn or at the very least do something other than sitting down at a table.

Even while you won’t have many hands on the players when you do sit down at a table, every bit of information is better than nothing, so use it properly.

Now take a look at the hand at the beginning of the article. You hold JTs in the CO, UTG+1 limped, what do you do?

Let’s say your HUD shows UTG+1 is relatively loose preflop, passive postflop, and folds to over 50% of all c-bets. The people to your left are not overly loose, and the BB doesn’t seem to be someone defending his blinds to steals all the time. The most EV move here would probably be to make a raise that would get called by UTG+1 most of the time and hopefully not by the blinds, so to something like 4xBB total, and c-bet any flop. Size of c-bet depends on flop texture.

If UTG+1 folds to c-bets less than 40% of the time or if the blinds seem loose, the correct move would probably be to just call and hope for a multiway pot with that holding.

Some people to your left with exceptional high PFR ratings? Fold unless you are effectively deep stacked.

Good table selection may be a way to maximize winnings when sticking to a certain play style, with basics such as people who like playing LAG looking for tight people to their right, TAG’s looking for loose people to their right.

But with a more flexible approach you will be dominating more tables by adjusting correctly. You will try to play every situation for maximum EV. A nice side effect is that your own stats don’t give dataminers at your table enough info to exploit you. At some tables you may look like a complete maniac, at another the biggest nit ever, but hopefully on both tables sitting behind a nice big stack.

More important, playing like this should increase your pre-, postflop and hand reading skills at a faster rate than sticking to any standard play.

Yours truly,
Soultwister

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies to your right."

Poker is a Game of Chance

2007-07-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

Bean-counters from the tax department state this. It has to be correct, since the Law says so (the Dutch Supreme Court ruled it in 1998.) Many other people also agree with this, like for instance the group of people that buy state lottery tickets and have an estimated IQ of over 120. Those with a lower IQ would probably call it a game of luck instead.

“Poker is a game of incomplete information.”

Interesting statement, or at least, it must be, since it’s been written in every article on poker which is over one page long.

Let’s see if any of both of these statements are true, by taking this single hand as example.

Remember though, this is not about the actual hand, it's about the methods used to analyze other factors in a poker game than basic odds and hand strength. Feel free to let me hear your thoughts on this.

I also posted this on Internet Texas Holdem, click link to see the original post:

Available information:
I only played a few hands at this table, about 1 orbit, so I don’t have any reads yet on the other players.
I have slightly over a full stack, and the big stack is sitting two seats to my left, the small stack two to my right. Lousy table selection by me.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.50/$1 Blinds - 6 Players - (LegoPoker HH Converter)

Soultwister (SB): $103.90
BB: $180.40
UTG: $81.70
MP: $100.00
CO: $58.50
BTN: $100.00

Preflop: Soultwister is dealt (6 Players)
UTG calls $1.00, MP raises to $5.00, 2 folds,

What happened so far? UTG limped, which is a weak play in 6-max in my eyes. A player behind him raised, which doesn’t say much about his hand. He could be raising here for value with a strong hand, or just raising a decent hand to isolate against the limper.

The size of the current pot tells me I should fold or reraise, getting 1.66:1 pot odds out of position. But if I call, the big blind is getting good pot odds so may call with any two cards, and the player UTG will most likely call for the same reason. So my estimated pot odds of calling here would be between 2.66:1 and 3.44:1. Good enough for a call. Folding here isn’t bad either. Reraising is just too risky without more information, or at least would be a high variance play OOP without info. Not my style.

Soultwister calls $4.50, BB calls $4.00, UTG calls $4.00

Flop: ($20) (4 Players)
Soultwister bets $12.00, BB raises to $34.00, 2 folds, Soultwister raises all-in to $98.90,

Very nice flop for me, even while I just have ace high now. How many outs do I have to hit the stone-cold nuts if that is what I need to win? 9 clubs and 3 10’s, so 12 outs to the nuts. That gives me about 45% chance to hit the nut flush or nut straight by the river.

I can check here and decide what my best options are when the action gets back to me, most likely checkraising. I would have chosen that option if UTG had been the initial raiser, since that increases the chance to get more players/money into the pot. It’s unlikely that this flop will get checked through, so my relative position is great right here.

The other option is betting out small into the PF raiser. This gives UTG good odds to tag along if he has any broadway cards and add some more money into the pot, while MP may interpret this bet as an informational bet, semi-bluff, value bet or pot sweetener. And he’ll be correct.

After my donkbet the BB reraised me, which generally means he must have a very strong hand, since he doesn’t seem to be afraid of preflop raiser.

I made a mistake here, I figured my 12 outs and current pot size would probably give me good odds to be in a profitable all-in situation, so put my chips in without realizing that I was already getting 3:1 pot odds. With 12 outs, I only need to get 2.92:1 to make my hand on the turn. So there was no need to make a move here at all.

When I go all-in and get called, the total pot will be $217.8 while I invest $86,9 here. Which is 40% of the total pot, while my outs tell me I’m winning 45% of the time. So with that information readily available, I’m making money here?

If I just look at my outs I win (0.45*217.8 )-86.9=$11.11. Folding earns me $0. So with that info I’d be losing $11.11 by folding compared to pushing all-in if villain never folds.

Pot odds can be deceptive though since there are more hidden factors. Is this situation really as profitable as it seems?

First, the rake was not substracted from the total pot. The rake is $3 maximum on full tilt at this limit, I get about a third back thanks to rakeback, so $2 total rake which lowers my winnings from earlier calculation to (0.45 * 215.8 )-86,9=$10.21. Small difference in large pots, but can have quite some impact on small pots where the odds seem marginally +EV.

Second, I won’t be winning 45% of the time at all. Against villains hand range, his sets/two pairs could improve to a full house or quads. But how likely is that to happen?

http://twodimes.net/poker/
Set:
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Ac Qc 325 32.83 665 67.17 0 0.00 0.328
Kc Kd 665 67.17 325 32.83 0 0.00 0.672

EV: -$16.11

AK:
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Ac Qc 423 42.73 558 56.36 9 0.91 0.432
Kc Ad 558 56.36 423 42.73 9 0.91 0.568

EV: $6.33

KJ:
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Ac Qc 409 41.31 581 58.69 0 0.00 0.413
Js Kc 581 58.69 409 41.31 0 0.00 0.587

EV: $2.23

There’s always a chance here that villain is making a move here with a draw or bluff, actually making me a favourite, but to calculate my odds I’m going to keep it simple and not take other hands into consideration, so let’s say he has at least top pair, two pair, or a set, and has one of these hands: JJ, AK, 44 or KJ. AA/KK look quite unlikely here because of his preflop play. And if I’m already making a worst case scenario, let’s scrap KQ/K10 from his range as well.

With the pot size I needed to win 40% of the time here to make this move profitable. There are 6 possible combinations for him to have a set if I take KK out of his hand range, 6 for the other hands mentioned. If each combination is just as likely that leads to (32.8+32.8+43.2+41.3)/4= 37,5% chance to win here.

So instead of earning $11.11 here like the first rough estimation I’ll be losing $5.98 here if I’m called all the time.

Does that make pushing all-in a –EV move? That depends on how often he needs to fold to make this profitable. If I move all-in here, I bet $86.9 (1.32 times pot) to win $64 (current pot – rake) if he folds. He will be getting (152.9/64.9) = 1 in 2.36 to call. What hands could he possibly fold here? Perhaps AK or KJ.

Time for some real math using the Fimbulwinter-method.

A=Current pot size – rake
X=Villain’s folding percentage / 100.
B= Winning chance
C= Total pot if called – rake
D= Your bet/raise

EV = Ax + (-x ) ((B*C )-D )

EV = 64x +(-x)((.37,5 )(215.8 )-86.9 )
EV= 64x +(-x )(-5.98 )
-x(-5.98 )=5.98x
EV = 64x +5.98x -5.98x = 0
5.98 = 64x +5.98x
X = 5.98/69.98 = 0.085

He only has to fold 8.5% of the time here to make this profitable. A random villain would lay down his hand more often than that for his remaining stack. So without trying to guess how often villain is actually reraising me here with a hand like KQ, K10, Q10, aces or a pair of deuces, this move is +EV right away.

BB calls $64.90

Turn: ($217.80) (2 Players - 1 All-In)

River: ($217.80) (2 Players - 1 All-In)

Pot Size: $217.80 ($3 Rake)

BB had (two pair, Kings and Jacks) and WON (+$110.90 )
Soultwister had (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-$103.90)

So is there any chance or luck involved? Short term indeed, but who cares what cards show up after you put your money in, poker is all about long term results. And in the long term, luck is a neglectable factor. And the chances are known.

Incomplete information? With the information available in this hand I could make no mistake that would make me lose more money than folding, even when having the worst hand. I should have just called on the flop against an unknown, and reraise against some regulars when I know more about their post-flop tendencies. More information would just allow me to make slightly better estimates of expected value.

So what IS poker? I think it's just a game in which you have to minimize your mistakes and try to induce your opponents to make their mistakes larger. If you just do that, and also keep taking the dead money on the tables often enough, it should be a profitable game. And dead money on poker tables is quite common if you realize we live in a world where people who are considered to have an over-average intelligence buy state lottery tickets.

Yours truly,
Soultwister

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies to your right."

Return Of The Blog

2007-07-16T05:10:00.000-07:00

It has been nearly a year since my last update. Where has Soultwister been?

Busting the tables still, or busting his bankroll?

A bit of both, but in my favor.

Around the time of my last update I switched from playing limit to No Limit. Why the switch?
As the saying goes, the key to limit poker is about trying to put your opponent to a decision for some of his chips. That was not good enough for me, I want them to make bad decisions for a large part of their chips.

Further, skill matters even more in NL than in limit, and it is a hundred times more fun. Correct bet sizing, position play, player reads, trying to make equity calculations on the fly, inducing bluffs for value and more factors like those make No Limit Hold'em the best game for me.

What limits did I play in NL?

I started out playing on $.10/.25 NL 10-max, working my bankroll up towards $.5/1 and a bit of $1/2. , though the later limits were all played shorthanded on 6-max tables.

6-max is where the real money in poker cash games is. First you will be playing a lot more hands per hour, secondly the average winning rate in BB/100 hands seems to be better. The combination of those makes it much more profitable then playing full-ring.

So how did I do?

From august up till march I withdrew a total profit of about €6000, so around $8200. I made a big mistake though, which is withdrawing too much money constantly spending it on RL things and leaving an online bankroll too small to adapt to big swings.

During april I noticed the error of my ways. At the end of april I had $2900 less online compared to the 10th of that month, even while the total loss of that month was only around $300, and actually still slightly profitable because of rakeback.

In the beginning of June I lost my last bankroll on Full Tilt Poker and PKR.com leaving myself with an online bankroll of only $1200.

But was this because of variance, bad play or bad bankroll management?

It's a combination of all three factors, and this is also the reason why I returned to Blogging.

The last few months I've spent most my poker time analyzing my play and was shocked at the conclusions I could draw from it. I was terrible at making correct value bets, did not give other players enough room to make mistakes, did not look good enough at the pot odds I were offering my opponents and picked some of the worst spots for bluffing.

When analyzing a hand history the best way for me seemed to be to put it on paper, look at all factors involved in the hand and try to extract every bit of useful information you can find in it. Results of the played hand do not matter, even the most basic hand can be pretty interesting and give useful information to use at later times.

I also returned to the poker forum I used to post in when I played limit before, http://www.internettexasholdem.com . It's a great place to post your thoughts, ask for other people's thoughts about played hands, or comment on their played hands yourself. Take a look at the forum if you haven't been there before, it is a great forum for beginners, novices and advanced players.

I will use a different approach here with my new posts than I used to. I'm no longer going to worry about the results of hands/situations posted here, or just worry about the optimal play, but rather am going to use these hands as a means to work out or explain concepts which can be used as a means to improve my game. And hopefully this will also help readers to improve parts of their game.

There will also be a lot more math involved in these posts. Even while the different calculations used to calculate the equity of a hand, required fold equity and other factors of the game will be very hard to calculate on the fly while in a hand, but after making many calculations like these, it becomes easier to estimate the expected value of different options or situations better.

Yours truly,
Soultwister

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies to your right."

August 20 Live T&I Poker Tourney

2006-08-24T05:23:00.000-07:00

I started on a very fun table, some solid players around the table, and generally relatively tight players to my left and loose aggressive players a few seats to my right. Loose aggressive to the extremes I may add, early on some of them raised and called to the river with nothing but ace high, and then I'm not talking about hands like ace 10 suited. No, ace 4 offsuit seemed good enough for some of 'em. I think someone even raised king 9 before the flop. Sorry, but king 9 offsuit?

It's not as if a hand like K9o is completely useless. Other then that it can draw to the second best flush and second best straight, it's actually a great holding for bluffing. If you can't hit a bloody flop with it, that hand will be perfect for it. Why waste decent cards on it?

I generally tried to see cheap flops with alot of suited and offsuit connectors, even with one or two gaps inbetween, and small pairs trying to hit sets. Didn't bother playing cards like A10 offsuit since I'd have no clue where I am in the hand with the loose players to my right. If the flop would come A36 I'd probably be against two pair already. Also didn't bother with bluffing on this table, since I assumed that if I'd hit anything with the loose aggressives in the hand, they'd pay me off anyways.

I think I hardly hit a flop for the first hour or so, which is the disadvantage of playing cards like those, but the blinds were still low so it didn't matter. Then after a while, in a raised pot, I held pocket 7's and the flop was something like 975. Almost perfect situation for my hand, middle set, only a straight possibility there.
After some bet, raise and reraise it became clear that someone to my right, who seemed like a pretty solid player to me, had a very strong hand himself. Well, the worst case scenario was that he would have the set of 9's. If he had the straight, which would be unlikely, I'd still have outs to the fullhouse. Best case scenario would be a lower set or overpair.

If you lose a set, and didn't lose alot, you played it bad I think, so I put the rest of my chips in against the player who had me covered with his stack. He actually had the set of 5's which didn't improve, so I doubled up nicely there.

Later when he was still shortstacked and made a raise preflop, , I looked down on a nice low pocket pair, 3's I think. There was already some money in the pot from limpers, so I made a raise to isolate myself against him, hoping he'd just have overcards. He had something like 78 suited and I won the race, though the board did give him 21 outs on the turn to give him some false hope.

Getting in the mood for busting people I made a raise when someone who had less then 4k chips left had limped in preflop. This time with a slightly higher pocket pair, aces to be precise, only he called the raise with another monster hand, 93 of spades. Offcourse he hit a flush on the flop and my party was spoiled.

After that I got moved to another table. Before other people joined that table I was the chipleader there, and it was a great table to sit at. Nearly all players other then 2 or 3 played very tight and homely, as if they were playing against their family, politely limping before the flop and not really giving the impression they were trying to bust eachother. I didn't play too many hands myself, but from those I played I took more then my fair share of the pots regardless of my cards, mostly because of my relatively big stack compared to the rest of the table. Twice I got caught, once when someone had a set and I gave up bluffing on the turn, another time when I made the mistake of betting too much, which the other player correctly saw as a bluff.
Executed the same move here which I did against a shortstack player on the first table, which was to raise him all-in for isolation, this time with a pocket pair of 6's, and won the race again. Also did some reverse blind stealing. Twice the button raised my big blind, and since it was an obvious button steal I tossed an orange 5k chip in.
Only I didn't sit here for long, I got moved to another table within an hour or so.

Which was pretty bad for me. My position at the table was terrible, on the opposite side of me was a very aggressive chipleader, and most other players to my left were also pretty aggressive. And worse, the deck was running cold for me. I had no semi-playable cards for a long time, and my only options were to make stone cold bluffs or wait till playable cards. I don't like stone cold bluffs with such players to my left, so I was waiting to anything playable. Even a 64 suited would seem nice to me in late position, but I wasn't getting those cards either. Only junk like K5, A6o (when in early position), J4 etc.
Eventually I got AKo which ran into...AKo, for a nice split pot. And got pocket kings with which I wanted to double up, but managed to run into a flopped two pair, costing me like 60% of my stack.

I only had about 7k left with the blinds at 800/1400, so my only move was to wait till there were no limpers to my right and go all-in with any two cards. It actually was a pair of 3's, though I would have done it with 72o at that point aswell. The chipleader called me with ace jack suited, hit his flush, and I ended in the 17th place.

While I didn't manage to end in the prizes, this was a great tournament, and think I learned enough here about different table structures to adjust my play in future tournaments.

Results: - $76
Bankroll: $1204

Interesting Hand from High Stakes Poker on GSN

2006-08-16T18:06:00.000-07:00

Suffering a bad beat can be pretty annoying, but if I suffered one involving as much cash as at these stakes, I would probably have a hard time coming up with the proper thing to say. A simple "Damn!" or naming some guy from a famous old book just doesn't seem to cut it anymore.

Daniel Negreanu's river call perhaps is questionable, then again, it is Gus Hansen he's playing against.

August 6 Live Tournament

2006-08-09T06:15:00.003-07:00

I almost missed out on sunday's live tourney organized by T&I Poker. Some real life issues came in the way and I almost decided not to go. But then I made a good excuse to myself that since I left with a profit both times I went there before, not going over would be a mistake, right? The real reason offcourse was simply that I felt like playing some cards.

I think I were about 4 or 5 hands into the game where I found a nice opportunity to properly introduce myself to the other players. A nice pair of kings, and I think I was in early position. I limped in, got raised for something like 300, and a put in a very significant reraise. I'm not sure about the exact amount I reraised with, but it was a raise that he should have interpreted as "Bugger off, you're beat, just fold, hand over those chips and you can wait till you get nice cards again". But it seemed he wasn't listening at that moment so he called.

The flop was all rags, and thinking he could only have had a very high pocket pair, but definitely no aces, I wasn't going to show him the turncard. I believe I tossed in an orange chip then as continuation bet, which is exactly half our starting stack, or I simply went all-in, but atleast he folded. Though the move was just to let the table know I wasn't afraid of pushing my chips in early in the game.

The table I played at was pretty active, lots of aggressive players, most tight, some quite loose, and limping was something almost unheard of at our table. If you wanted to limp from early position, you could better already raise to atleast 4 times the big blind so you didn't have to bother reaching for your chips a second time. Tried to get a tight image myself so my steals would succeed better later on when the pots would be larger (which worked well since I never got moved to another table. Later on I managed to make some nice steals after completely missing the flop or reraising someone all-in preflop with J9 and stuff like that).

For the rest of the game I also didn't bother with slowplaying much. Slowplaying that day involved nothing more then waiting slightly longer then usual before tossing a bunch of chips in the pot. I definitely wasn't going to let the next card be cheap. Only once did I try a checkraise when I flopped the nut straight with 75o, on a board with two clubs, but since everyone checked it failed. Bet out strongly on the turn when the third club came to represent a made flush and luckily nobody actually had the flush so the pot was mine anyways.

There has only been one non all-in hand I've been involved in that went to the showdown before the final table, which was when a player reraised me to test if I were bluffing while he held nothing (only the turn gave him a great draw and he hit his runner-runner flush on the river. I knew I was most likely beat here but wasn't going to give the table the impression I could be bluffed of any made hand for such a small reraise, and was curious what he had, so I paid him off).

One nice hand was the hand that would be the last before the dinner break. I had 99 in the small blind, there was a standard raise from early position and about 5 or 6 people called. Flop came down 678. With so many callers I assumed I would atleast be against an overpair and possibly a set, and tons of draws. The pot was already quite big, and I didn't think a significant bet would make everyone fold, and since nobody wants to get busted in the last hand before dinner break I just tossed the whole package in there and got no customers.

When I had slightly over 2ok chips a new guy came sitting over at our table. Seems he had personally busted his old table or something and came looking for new victims, since he had a tray with about 100k chips. From the start he made it perfectly clear to the table who the chipleader was, and showed he didn't like to get bet into, playing and defending pretty aggressively (he eventually ended up 2nd in the tourney).

When he was sitting in the big blind and it was my turn I looked down at my hole cards and saw a nice pocket pair of jacks. Hoping he had a playable hand, I raised all-in right away, trying to double up here. The other people folded and he was considering to call me. Which was good since it meant he atleast had a decent hand, like a small pocket pair or two face cards. I also tried to talk him into calling by saying something along the lines off "Stop with that silly Sam Farha impression, everyone at this table knows that you are just acting like you actually got a hand, will count your chips for a minute, and then end up folding anyways". I don't think saying that actually mattered, he was probably just wondering if he had two live cards and if I would have an overpair, so he called with JQ. Jacks held up, and I doubled up there. Me and him got involved in a few other hands that ended up in my favor, so I got a nice portion of his chips.

Eventually I reached the final table with a good stack of chips (well, I was already there, I just had to move seats). This was going to be a long stretch for a final table, about two hours, because the play generally was very tight. Two players very early on pushed the table around by going all-in very often, taking down the pots most of the time, but after a while both of them got called by players who had enough of it. I think both times the callers had worse hands but managed to outdraw them. Then again, there's no luck or bad luck involved in poker. There are only good and bad outs.

One guy who had reached the final table (I think he ended 5th or 6th) had been quite good at hitting those outs at the right moment. A few hours before the final table he was down to about 1500 chips and still managed to make it into the prizes, quite an impressive comeback. Earlier on he was sitting directly to my left, and twice or thrice I didn't even try to steal his blinds, but he almost caught me in a bluff when he was seriously considering calling me with his middle pair (I had 63s, bottom pair on that board).

Played too passive myself myself on the final table, did some pushes with ace-rag or small pocket pairs to steal the blinds, and went all-in with K5o when the person in the big blind didn't have enough chips left to justify a fold, but other then that I didn't get involved in enough pots to allow my stack to grow enough to compete for the first place.

I still managed to finish third place myself, actually losing to one of my favourite late-position hands in no-limit, 7-5, and received a nice envelope with 540 euros.

Selfshine didn't make it to the final table today, but he won a sidegame at the tourney, a 20 euro sit-and-go, giving him 80 euro profit to cover the buyin. And since we always partly split the profit he received 200 euros from the profit, so this sunday earned me 280 euros to add to my bankroll.

Results: + $360
Bankroll: $1280

Sunday's Live Tourney

2006-07-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

Sunday it was the second time me and Selfshine headed to a live tournament organized by T&I Poker. The same tourney we headed to earlier where I ended 7th.

We went inside after Selfshine paid our buyins thanks to saturday's winnings. First thing that became obvious is how popular poker has become in Holland lately. It was about 30 degrees Celcius outside and still 92 people had showed up for the tournament (for you Americans who wonder how many degrees Fahrenheit that is, it's hot). But atleast there was a good working airco.

Offcourse many of the conversations by the players inside were about the subject most poker players don't want to hear about, yet talk about anyways: bad beats. Then again, since most poker players, myself included, know more bad beat stories then comedians know good jokes, I mentioned a few aswell.

On the other hand, some subtlety is needed here aswell. When someone tells you that they lost a flopped quad 8's to a runner-runner straight flush, it's probably very rude to mention to them that it happened to you aswell after flopping quad 9's. It would show no respect.

Or when they flopped quad K's and lost to quad A's? Been there, done that...but it's rude to mention.

Then again, I still haven't played poker long enough to have lost a straight flush to a royal flush. Seen it happen, but still looking forward for it to happen to me. And if it happens on the bubble of a tournament, which means just outside of the price money, I got a bad beat story that will be hard to match. Since the law of probability makes it very unlikely that it won't happen to me if I just play enough hands, I can only hope that it won't be during the World Series of Poker in X years.

The tourney didn't go well for me, and that is only thanks to my own play. First I didn't mind paying quite a bit for my good draws, I also tried to steal many pots when just having middle pair or overcards. With the blinds going up at a nice slow pace, there's no need to be in a hurry at all.

So about two hours after the tourney started I had a stack of about 5000 chips left (I believe we started out with 10k chips) and I limped in with what I thought was 56 suited. On the flop I was against two players, the chip leader with over 20k chips, and someone else. I missed the flop other then a low pair, backdoor straight and flush draw. I bet about 1k chips hoping to take the pot right there, ready to give it up if I didn't.

Chipleader just called, other person folded, and the turn gave me an outside straight draw. I bet again since I was sure that the chipleader atleast had a weak ace, and if I hit I would double up here since my chipstack would not threaten him anymore.

After the turn showed up an 8, which also completed a possible flush of which I were sure that the chipleader wouldn't have it, I bet out again, and the chipleader put me all-in as expected. I called and he turned over a 23. A smaller straight then I thought I had. So I turned over my hand just to see a 4 and a 5 lying infront of me. I had two pair instead of the nut straight I thought I had.

Atleast I didn't go out because of a bad beat, but because of my own stupidity. Next time someone puts me all-in and I think I hold the nuts, I may actually bother to double-check my cards.

All the weight of giving this post a happy ending was resting on the shoulders of Selfshine, who was still in the tourney, and doing well. After the dinner break the cash game had changed into a sit-and-go tourney, which I'm not that familiar with, so I went over to watch him play.

He generally had a very large stack in front of him, only had the nasty habit of losing about half his stack everytime I went to get a drink.

He played great, but there was a time where he suffered some losses and became a relatively small stack at the table where his luck held up. The board came A23, someone bet, a shortstack called, and he went all-in. Both people called, the first one to bet turning over 22 for a set, and the shortstack 56 for a gutshot straight draw. With only 4 outs left, it seemed it was all over, but the river showed a 3 giving Selfshine the bigger fullhouse.

After that his stack only kept growing fast, and he used it well to intimidate the players with less chips (which were all other players at his table after a while).

He reached the final table, and as opposed to last time I were there, the blinds weren't that high yet, so there was plenty of time left to play serious poker. He was slightly in lead with chips compared to the other big stacks, but chose to get involved with many of the smaller stacks succesfully, leading to him getting a huge chiplead over the rest of the table.

After the other players lost their stack, it became a heads-up between him and another player who had a slight chip disadvantage. The other player suggested if Selfshine wanted to make a deal, meaning splitting 50/50. But after getting this far, being the chipleader, and the second prize still being being 950 euros, he only had to think a nano-second before making the logical choice and declining the offer. I would have done the same in this situation.

The other player was very good at playing heads-up. He won most the pots where none of them had good cards, but there was a hand where it almost went wrong for him. He made his standard raise from the small blind, got reraised, and then went all-in. He got called by Selfshine's AK while holding 86s, only to win by a hitting a straight or something.

The final hand was an all-in preflop from both where Selfshine held AQ against AK. Only because this would probably be the deciding hand, the dealer was kind enough to put a queen on the flop but completing a straight for AK aswell.

The final hand

This actually was a profitable day for me aswell. Since me and Selfshine decided we'd partly split the profits from these tourneys (I gave him 100 euros when I won 245 last time) I received 300 euros (which is about 377 dollars).

Results: + $377
Bankroll: $920

Saturday Night Poker

2006-07-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday I headed over to a friend to play the finals together of the 1 million dollar freeroll he qualified for earlier. It's the same friend who went along with me to the last T&I-Poker live tourney from the earlier post and the same friend who actually got me into trying out poker. I'll just refer to him from now on forth using one of his nicks, Selfshine, first to keep it simple, and second because even while I trust the employees of the national tax department are fish when it comes to their googling skills, there's no need to provide them with a first name.

Playing together worked very well. Generally we discussed in each situation what the best move would be, and eventually settled with a choice both of us could agree on.

The first few hours went well, but when there were about 2k players left it went downwards though, we didn't manage to win many pots and kept running into situations where we had the second best hand. Eventually it ended when we got QQ and decided to make a move to double up, only we ran into KK to end the tourney in about 1200th place.

A few six-packs of beer and some liquor since the start of the evening it was still pretty early (well, 1am or so) and we decided to join a 5 dollar turbo rebuy-tourney (Translation into something slightly resembling English: A tourney in which people can rebuy a new starting stack after losing their whole stack up till the first break. And for the really big fishes, that means they can re-buy like 10 times if they want, which increases the prize pot pretty fast. Turbo just means that the blinds increase so fast that if you wait until you actually get great cards your stack will be gone).

The tourney went smooth, we started out playing tight, kept a good stack and the other tight players didn't seem too willing to put their chips in against us. So we just played more aggressively and managed to rake in many pots.

Eventually we got to the final table with a big stack compared to most players there, and proceeded to take more then our fair share from the pots, while the low stacks got smaller from the blinds. Selfshine then announced that if we'd end in first spot he'd pay my buyin for the live tournament we were heading to the next day.

When we were only against one other player that almost failed, since even while we had a bigger stack, having him doubling up would give us lots of trouble to play back at him. And that's when we reraised him all-in when holding AJs against his AK.

But what's poker without a bit of luck? The board ended showing two pairs, 7s and 4s, giving both of us two pair with ace kicker, splitting the pot.

A few hands later, with our opponent probably on tilt, we managed to take his stack as our own and finished first in the tourney, winning 750 dollars.

Very nice profit for Selfshine, and my buyin for sunday's tourney would be free for me. Not bad at all for one night of playing cards.

Continueing the grind, but what is the goal?

2006-07-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a friend yesterday who has read my blog and pointed out to me that it's not clear what my main focus and goals for the short term are.

The long term goals are probably pretty obvious. After turning the 25 dollars into 10k I'll continue till I'm a millionaire, get a big house with a nice white fence, buy a private island and then spend most of my days watching Blackadder re-runs from my jacuzzi.

Other than that, my short term goals are perhaps less obvious. Right now the end goal of playing at this limit is to work my balance on pokerstars up till I have over 600 dollars there. Which means I'll have a bankroll of 300 big bets ready for the 1/2 dollar games. But it's not my focus to get there as fast as I can.

I think I could earn more if I played 'fit and fold' poker. Which is a playstyle many good tight-aggressive players use in the lower limits. It simply means you won't get involved in pots where you missed the flop, but play those where you think you have the best hand with the proper aggression. Those players make good money since there are so many bad players at the lower limits and they take little risk, but they are very easy to read.
I regard that playstyle in much the same way as acrophobics regard skydiving: technically feasible, but strictly for other people.

My focus is to get better at identifying what the right situations are to take down pots without having a good hand, extract as much money out of people as possible when I am quite sure I have the better hand, and to get out of more pots where I have a good hand but someone has a better one. To do that, I need to become much better at reading opponents, pay more attention to what they do in certain situations.

What does the player two seats to my right do when he gets reraised on the flop while he just holds two overcards or middle pair? And when he has top pair with a decent kicker, does he play it different then when he's on a draw? Can he release a hand like top pair when an overcard comes and he suddenly gets reraised?

Here's an example from today to show what I mean:

Poker Stars
Limit Holdem Ring game
Limit: $0.50/$1
10 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (10 players) Soultwister is CO with
4 folds, MP2 calls, MP3 folds, Soultwister calls, Button folds, SB calls, BB checks.

Flop: (4SB, 4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, MP2 checks, Soultwister bets, SB raises, BB folds, MP2 calls, Soultwister calls.

Turn: (5BB, 3 players)
SB bets, MP2 folds, Soultwister calls.

River: (7BB, 2 players)
SB bets, Soultwister calls.

Results:
Final pot: 9BB
Soultwister showed Js Kc
SB showed 7s 9s

The player in the small blind here is a slightly loose aggressive but tricky player. But he plays his big hands slow, his weak hands strong. Against most other players at this table, I would definitely have folded to this flop checkraise while having middle pair and a weak straightdraw. But I was pretty sure that if this player had an ace, two pair or a straight he would have waited for the turn to checkraise, even while the board looked so scary.

I could have done two things here. Reraise to find out if my read is correct, which would probably lead to him folding, or play in such a way I get the most money out of it. So trusting my read, I decided to just call him down giving him more chances to bluff into me, making him put two more dollars into the pot. Further, other people on the table observing this hand may take note of my 'bad' calls and that could lead to them paying me off better on my good hands.

The reason for working on this is that my edge against my opponents will get smaller as I go up in limits, and I'm thinking of switching to shorthanded tables in a while (no tables with 10 players where you can wait for hands, but tables where there are 4-6 players maximum forcing you to get involved in many more hands). Shorthanded the win rates are higher, but so are the losses and the variance, so I'll need every edge I can get then. Just playing the cards would be a losing strategy there.

PokerStars $ 0,50/1 Upswing!

2006-07-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

After reviewing my hands I noticed my mistakes when playing were not the reason of the earlier downswing. I did notice some leaks, but over the sample in which I had the downswing they accounted to a loss of about 5-6 dollars, just a small portion of the downswing.

It was time for the natural law of randomization to catch up with my previous downswing, and it did in such a way that it seemed it wanted to appologise.

Over the next 450-ish played hands my nut flush draws hit on the turn more often then not allowing me to maximize my profit, two pairs improved to fullhouses as another player hit his flush, outside and inside straight draws hit, I got quads twice and my semi bluffs allowed me to take down many pots. Which translated into $66,5 profit since last post.

After slightly less then 3k hands played at this limit this puts me back at over 2bb/100 hands profit, while having a standard deviation of over 11 dollars per hour played.

So I'm back in business, and poker is already giving me a higher hourly income then the average person in China.

Results: +$66,50
Total $0,50/1 results: +$64
Bankroll: $543

PokerStars $ 0.50/1 - Downswing

2006-07-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

Played three small sessions since my last post. The results are quite bad, but worse, I played bad.
Managed to get my total $0,50/1 winnings down to a loss of $2,5.

Even while I were facing a cold deck mostly and didn't have much luck with flops, I didn't play as I should have. And got beat a few times while holding very strong hands (second best flush against nut flush, set over set, KK vs A10 with an ace on river etc.)

A downswing is normal, but this one went too steep, and I should have lost much less if I just played correctly, so right now I'm not going to sit down in any game till I reviewed each single hand played and notice my leaks.

Results: -$55,50
Total $0,50/1 results: -$2,50
Bankroll: $476,50

PokerStars $ 0.50/1 - First case of Tilt

2006-07-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

Started out on 0.50c/$1 Limit tables about a week ago. It started out well, just sticking to my game. I still made some mistakes which hurt much more at this limit, but overall I was happy about my game.

Eventually I was up 42 dollars as I ended for the third evening. The next day though I managed to get this profit down to about 12 dollars in about 2,5 hours. What was I doing wrong?

Sitting out at the table I started to review my hand histories. First thing I noticed was that I simply missed every single flush and outside straight draw, which means if I had just hit my fair share of them my profit wouldn't have declined much if any. It were 14 huge draws in which I was drawing to the nuts or close to it.

While that wasn't bad in a small sample at all, I noticed it started to affect my play. I was calling down in hands I'd normally bet out with or reraise, and started to slowplay the few big hands I had (like trips). Even while I would probably have lost more if I played the hands as I normally would, changing my playstyle subconciously because I'm in a downswing should definitely not be a reason to start playing more passively. And if I'm not playing my own game, I should not play at all. So even while I had about an hour left to play, I stopped playing for the night, recognizing this as a slight case of Tilt.

The next evenings I was back playing my own game again, and it worked out well. Got back to even in a short time and made a profit overall, ending at 53 dollars profit totally at this limit.

Still over 3BB/100 hands and atleast getting some FPP's (Pokerstars Frequent Player Points that can be used to purchase some items). So just a few months away from getting a free composite chip set or a few decades from getting a free Porsche Cayman.

Results: +$53
Bankroll: $532

PokerStars 25/50c

2006-06-27T11:29:00.000-07:00

Poker Stars
Limit Holdem Ring game
Limit: $0.25/$0.5
10 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (10 players) Soultwister is MP3 with
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises, UTG+2 folds, MP1 calls, MP2 folds, Soultwister 3-bets, 4 folds, UTG+1 calls, MP1 calls.

Flop: (10.4SB, 3 players)
UTG+1 checks, MP1 checks, Soultwister bets, UTG+1 folds, MP1 calls.

Turn: (6.2BB, 2 players)
MP1 checks, Soultwister bets, MP1 folds.
Uncalled bets: 1BB returned to Soultwister.

Results:
Final pot: 6.2BB

So much for tight-passive play at this limit. I focused much more now on well placed aggression and player reads then before. Look at the example above. Even if I didn't have such a monster as 53-offsuit I'd reraise here with alot more hands to isolate against that player, since that player was very easy to read, and I had seen him play hundreds of hands. Raising from early position his only holdings could be AA/KK/QQ/AK/AQs. And without an A, K or Q on the flop I'd find out what kind of hand he could have very easily. Other then that, he folds to aggression pretty easily when he misses the board.

The flop was great for me, since he would not have raised JJ or AJ from that position. And since he didn't cap before the flop he could only have AK/AQ or perhaps QQ.

Improving on the turn I fired another shot at him, though I would have done the same if I hadn't. Only had he called on the turn aswell I'd know he'd have QQ or two hearts, which would be problematic, and I would have to let go of my hand there regardless of what the river brought, unless he'd give me a free showdown.

I've been playing like this quite often, and when done against the right players it worked well. I'd fold AQo to raisers while I would call with small connectors like 910o or 97s if they were players who were easy to read.

Same goes for when I were the preflop raiser. If people don't tell me I'm behind by raising my continuation bet on the flop, I'll lead out on the turn and perhaps the river aswell. It's a break-even play generally since I pick up alot of pots from people folding to me, and lose many to bad hands, but since this also leads to people calling or raising me with many mediocre hands I get paid off much better when I actually do hold a hand.

Checkraising is also a thing I employ much less now. Why checkraise when you can donkbet like a fish?

For you fish out there, let's first explain what a donkbet is. Let's say you hold 99, you call, someone raises, you call again, and the flop comes with an ace and two other cards. So you check and someone raises (he probably has the ace). You call like any fish would and the turn comes up with a 9. So the proper move now is to check, wait till the one with the ace bets out, and then reraise him. But a fish would not understand that logic and bets out on the turn to betray he has a strong hand.

I like donking out with flushdraws, open ended straight draws, sets, top or overpair on a rag flop etc. Since people don't like getting bet into when they were the aggressor preflop they often reraise, and fold much less then if I'd checkraise them or checkcall to river. Even while in some on those situations it would be much safer and profitable to just checkcall, or checkraise for value, I prefer aggression over standard solid play. Checkcalling will not make me win many pots without a showdown, and getting used to passive play will not be any good as I move up in limits.

The plan at this limit was to play about 10k hands and continue till I'd think I'd be ready to move up another limit. So far I have a $196 profit after 9343 hands (it was 208 dollars about 2k hands ago but I made the mistake of multitabling again, which didn't work well with my playstyle).

To end the blog today, here's another example of the Monster holding in action:

Poker Stars
Limit Holdem Ring game
Limit: $0.25/$0.5
9 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (9 players) Soultwister is MP1 with
UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, Soultwister raises, MP2 calls, 2 folds, Button calls, 2 folds, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls.

Flop: (11.4SB, 5 players)
UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, Soultwister bets, MP2 calls, Button calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls.

Turn: (8.2BB, 5 players)
UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, Soultwister bets, MP2 folds, Button calls, UTG folds, UTG+1 calls.

River: (11.2BB, 3 players)
UTG+1 checks, Soultwister bets, Button calls, UTG+1 folds.

Results:
Final pot: 13.2BB
Soultwister showed 3s 5d

Results: +$196
Bankroll: $479

Live tournament

2006-06-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

May 28 I did something that didn't fit within bankroll management, but decided to do it just for the experience and the fun, and I would substract the possible losses off my bankroll aswell.

I joined my first live multi table tournament, which was organized nearby (by T&I Poker). It was a 50+10 euro buyin (total about 76 dollars) with 89 players.

Anyways, after not having played at live tables other then playing a few games with friends, it was a completely different game for me. Felt like a beginner at those tables for the first few hours, and didn't make much progress either, missing the flop constantly and starting out tight, but managed to make enough blind steals and bluffs when people showed weakness.

Actually seeing the looks on people's faces when you make a great or bad play is priceless though. Online it's just a pot you win/lose, now you can see directly how it affects your table image and adjust your game accordingly. It's definitely true that table image means tons more in live play, leading to me having to change my playstyle from table to table.

The best part was managing to pick up some tells from people. Keeping the tip in mind to watch the other players when you get dealt your hole cards instead of watching your own cards first, and watching the players when the flop is dealt instead of looking at it yourself. Besides, the flop will still be there when it's your turn to act.

It were basic tells, preflop one player always stacked his good/playable cards neatly on top of eachother, and put his bad cards with slightly less discipline on the table. Another always went with his hand to his chips when he got cards he wasn't going to play after seeing the flop, while sitting seemingly relaxed on flops he was going to play.

My favourite hand of the day was when I was finally dealt pocket rockets, early in position, and the chip leader to my right made a huge raise (25k, with the blinds about 1.5/3k, about 40% of my stack). I assumed he would never fold against me going all-in at that moment since I thought he actually wanted to get called all-in by a low stack. And offcourse with a raise like that the only proper moves are to go all-in or fold.

I took a gamble there that he would not improve on the flop, or face a scary one, and decided to just flat call. Online I would never make that move, but here I decided winning this way would definitely give me a present table image. And losing would teach me not to make that move again .

First thing that happened was the look of confusion as I announced a flat call around the table, especially on the face of the raiser. Then as the flop hit, but of us were looking at eachother for about 20 seconds while neighter of us had seen the flop yet. Then he took a glance and announced his all-in to the rag board. Aces held up, got a nice stack, and I don't think a play like that would ever have so much effect on your table image in online MTT's.

Even while the experience alone was worth the buyin, it was even better to finally hit the final table and know you are within the prices.

I started on that final table with 100k chips, lost a steal attempt against a player in the big blind who held a grudge against me (my first AA vs his QQ earlier that day removed him from chip leader position), and then was dealt pocket 6's when the blinds had gone up to 10/20k (having 70k left). No choice there I think, went all-in, got called by AQ and lossed the cointoss.

Which made me win 245 euros (about 312 dollars ), quite a nice way to end my first live MTT.

I gave 100 euros to a friend of mine who went along to the tournament so both of us had our buyin covered and went home with a profit.

Results: +$110
Bankroll: $285

Pokerstars 10/20 cents

2006-06-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

After reaching my goal on Paradise, I cashed out 100 dollars and deposited 50 dollars on Poker Stars.

Poker Stars has a nice feature, which is that the software can automatically store hand histories on the harddisk.

Then again, after starting playing there, I was sure I was going to need it, since even at 10/20c limit tables their players were much better then at Paradise.

Yes, there still were fish, lots of 'em, just as juicy as on Paradise, but it wasn't a rare sight to see 5 or more decent players sitting at a table at these limits, which at Paradise seemed more rare than flopping a Royal Flush.

My plan here was to make 100 dollars on the 10/20c tables aswell.

The approach was simple, I generally multitabled on 2 or more tables while playing very mechanical, and spending almost as much time analyzing my played hands as actually playing cards.

Also got hold of the book Internet Texas Hold'em by Matthew Hilger, which is quite a worthwhile read for a new player, which helped to improve my play quite a bit.I just tried to play solid poker and make as few mistakes as possible.

It went well, but it was bloody boring, so after 9k hands and about 50 dollars profit I decided moving up a limit would be the best choice.

Periodically I'll add some tables and graphs like below which show statistics about my results at the played limit, and the graph shows my total winrate in big bets.

Results: +$50
Bankroll: $175

Grind Through Paradise

2006-06-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

With 25 dollars at my disposal, and the term 'bankroll management' just sounding as something inedible to me, I sat down at a 1/2$ table for my first real money experience.

It went as planned, climbing up to 93 dollars as peak, and ending the night with 70 dollars.

Over the next few days it kept going like that, making great winnings, but great losses aswell. What was I doing wrong?

Eventually the cashier showed I had 10 dollars left. So much for easy winnings.

After my failed experiment at the 1/2$ tables, and with 10 dollars left in my account, it was time to do some research on the game.

Getting hold of Small Stakes Hold'em by David Sklansky and Ed Miller, I started playing at the lowest limit tables, 2/4 cents or something, till my bankroll was back up to 25 dollars.

After that I started on the 10/20 cent tables, with the goal to increase my bankroll to 125 dollars there.

It definitely was a grind, studying the concepts behind it constantly, while my bankroll went up at a snail's pace.

When my bankroll was up to about 75 dollars I experimented with a certain play that was pretty fun, though probably only profitable because the average player there was a genuine fish.

I stopped betting out first in. Calling before the flop when nobody was in, or reraise, and checkraise or checkfold on flop and turn. Quite a silly play, but it worked to frustrate the people on the tables, since I checkraised so often.

I don't employ that system now anymore except when there is a maniac at the table, but it did suffice to get my bankroll up to 125 dollars that way.

Results: +$100
Bankroll: $125

The History

2006-06-20T14:45:00.000-07:00

For me it all began somewhere in the end of January 2006. A friend of mine was talking alot about his newest hobby, a poker game called Texas Hold'em, and especially about how much money could be made by playing it on the internet.

The game itself was new to me, I only played draw poker back at highschool. But the two of us and another friend (the two of us got pretty good at cheating at draw poker at micro stakes in highschool - who needs knowledge of the game when you can pocket aces and jokers?) got together one night to play some Hold'em.

After that I created an account at Paradise Poker and started at the play money tables. Well, that experience lasted about two full hours before I realized it's pretty boring if everyone calls to the river with any two cards.

That's when I noticed my nice blue Mastercard, which was safely lying somewhere on the ground in the vicinity of my computer, and deposited 25 dollars onto my Paradise Poker account.

Bankroll: $25

The Mission

2006-06-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

Nothing fancy, the Mission is to turn 25 dollars into 10.000 dollars. No time limit set yet, but it definitely should be a lot faster than interest rates.

And all of this just by playing games of Texas Hold'em.

Possible? Definitely.

But can I do it?

Well, that is what this blog is for. To keep track of progress, and to give me something to do when I'm folding 30 hands in a row.